


Remember Me

by reciprocityfic



Category: Man of Steel (2013), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-04-16 10:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4621242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reciprocityfic/pseuds/reciprocityfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never forget your first love, and the two of them find this out the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

They don’t show much on television.  Whether that’s because they’re not allowed or if they simply _can’t_ – if the invaders’ technology is preventing them from doing so – she doesn’t know.  When it does come on, it is a reporter sitting behind a desk giving shallow, broken, incoherent bits of information or someone calling in to give their alien eyewitness account, trying to gain their fifteen minutes of fame.  From what she does gather, she learns that a majority of this is happening in her hometown.  In _Kansas_.  What extra-terrestrial beings could possibly want in Kanas she can’t fathom.

(Except that she can, really.  She can.  But she’s been trying not to think about it for years.)

She’s just glad she has no one there to worry about.  No ties to that lonely town.  Maybe she’ll be lucky.  Maybe they’ll take out her parents’ house in the midst of their war and lift the burden from her.

All the news reporters, eyewitnesses, everyone around her, can’t stop talking about the superman.  The alien that’s been hiding among them for years.  All anyone can produce so far are blurry pictures, short video clips that show a flash of blue and red. (He wears a red cape, apparently.  She almost rolls her eyes because it’s so much like comic books that if she didn’t know any better she’d think some geek pulled on a blue bodysuit and tied a red sheet around his neck and decided he was a superhero.  But she doesn’t.  Because it’s real.  The warzone that is her birthplace after the battle is proof of that.)

No one gets a good glimpse of him.  Until weeks after the whole thing’s over and they’ve sifted through all the footage they’d accumulated.  And even then, his picture isn’t very clear.  A five second shot from a few dozen yards away.  Then he flies away, out of the picture.

She almost doesn’t pay attention to the news report.  She doesn’t think they’ll ever be hearing from this supposed ‘Man of Steel’ again.

She almost doesn’t pay attention.

But she does.

She glances up from her scrambled eggs and coffee and then can’t look away.  Because she _knows_ immediately.  Without the need to double check, to pause or rewind the story.  She knows.  Even though she’s been trying not to think about it for years.

She doesn’t need to rewind and pause the breaking news, but she does anyway, because it’s been so long since she saw him.  She stops on the moment his eyes dart toward the camera, then puts down the remote and creeps toward the television.  She kneels in front of the screen, brings her fingers up to rest on his face.  She lets them linger there, tears welling up in her eyes.  She’d tried not to think about it, but she’d remembered every bit of it.  Every moment.  Every second she’d ever shared with him.

A smile spreads across her face.

“Clark,” she whispers.

*             *             *

“Sarah’s having a party tonight.  Her parents are out of town.”

“Cool,” she answered him.

“Are you going to be there?” he implored, pushing his blonde hair out of his eyes and leaning up against the lockers next to hers.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She pulled her trigonometry book from the top shelf.  “I don’t think I’m invited.”

“Sure you are.  You and Sarah are friends.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Sarah hasn’t talked to me since fifth grade, Josh.”

“Oh,” he said, looking down and turning his keys over in his hand.  “Well, I invite you then.  Sarah’s brother tells me that she’s half in love with me.  So if she gives you any trouble, tell her I told you to come.”

“I’m not going, Josh.”

“Listen, I swear Sarah will be okay with it.  I’ll even warn her beforehand that I invited you.  Then I can pick you up or something and we’ll hang out and have a great time.”

“I’m not going.”

“But Lana, _I_ invited – “

“Are you inviting Clark too?” she asked pointedly, staring into her locker.

He didn’t answer her for a few seconds.  Then, he weakly mumbled, “No.”

“Then I’m not going.”

 “Look, I know you’re a nice person, and you hang out with him because you feel sorry for him –“

“I don’t feel _sorry_ for him,” she spat.  “I _like_ him.  He’s my best friend.”  She slammed her locker shut and slung her backpack over her shoulder.  “I’m going home, Josh.”

Josh grabbed her arm, stopping her.  “Lana.  Okay, so he’s your best friend.  Whatever.  But you don’t have to hang out with just your best friend.  It’s okay to see other people.”

“Sorry, but I’m not interested in spending time with people who make fun of him, who leave him out of things and never attempt to get to know him and call him a freak.  So if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to skip Sarah’s party.  Thanks for the invite, though.  I’ll see you Monday, Josh.”

She pulled away from him, and was halfway down the hall when he called out to her.

“It’s a pity, really.”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“It’s a pity,” he continued, “because you’re so pretty and nice and smart and you could be so popular and well-liked.  But you’re not.  You’re right. Sarah hasn’t talked to you since fifth grade.  No one’s really talked to you since fifth grade.  You don’t have any friends.  Because you insist on hanging around with that – that _freak_ ,” he sneers.  “And you can try to tell me that he’s nice, smart, a good person, but none of that really matters because he is a _freak_ and he doesn’t belong here.  He’ll never belong here, or anywhere, and you know that just as well as I do.”

She pressed her lips together, closing her eyes.

“I’ll see you Monday, Josh,” she said curtly, and continued on to the door.

He was waiting for her, sitting on the ground, knees pulled to his chest, back against the brick of the school building.  A baseball cap hid his eyes from her.

“He has a point, you know.”

She stole the hat from his head and hit him with it, then sunk down to the ground beside him.

“Hey, that wasn’t very nice.”

She put it on her head.  “It’s mine anyways.”

“You left it at my house last night.  I thought it was a present.”

“Not a chance.  This is from the first Royals game my dad ever took me to.”

“Then you shouldn’t just leave it lying around random places.”

“It wasn’t a random place.  It was your dresser.  I knew you would take care of it.”

He glanced at her, a smile on his face.  It fell immediately.

“What?”

He sighed.

“You’ve been crying.”

“Really?” She wiped at her eyes, and felt moisture on her fingers.  She could sense the change in his demeanor, and placed a hand on his bicep.  The muscle was tense beneath her fingers.

“Clark, don’t worry about it.  It’s not a big deal, really.  I didn’t even notice until you said something.  And you know that I cry basically anytime I experience any heightened emotion.  It’s nothing.”

“He made you cry,” he grumbled.  “He said terrible things to you.  I’m sick of everybody saying terrible things to you because of me.”

“I told you to stop listening.”

“I can’t just _stop listening_.  I naturally hear it.  And it’s really hard to tune out.  Especially when it deals with you.”

She exhaled deeply.

“Look, I wasn’t crying for me.  I couldn’t give a shit what Joshua Miller or any of those other people think about me.”

“Then why were you crying?” he inquired.

She looked away from him, suddenly embarrassed.  “I was crying for…well, for _you._   Because _I’m_ sick of people being able to say whatever they want about you and no one doing anything about it.  The teachers don’t care, the parents don’t care, because they all think the same thing.  And sometimes I just want to grab them and shake them and force them to see…”

“See?” he entreated her.

“How amazing and special and beautiful you are.”  She hid her face in the crook of her arm, because she was blushing now and she tried to hide it as much as she could.  He saw it anyway, she knew.

“Sometimes I wish _so badly_ that you could punch them, Clark,” she mumbled.

He laughed gently.  “So do I.”

They were quiet for a few minutes.  Eventually, he began to pull on her head.  She turned toward him, and he stared into her eyes, searching.  She didn’t know for what.  After a moment, she began to blush again.

“What?”

“You can go to that party tonight,” he told her.  “If you want to.  I won’t mind.  Really, I won’t.”

She shook her head.

“No, thank you.”

He looked up at the sky.  “Like I said, he has a point.”

“And what is that?”

“I _am_ a freak, and I don’t belong here.  And you would have such a perfect life if it wasn’t for me.”

She rolled her eyes and elbowed him.  “ _Stop that_.  See, this is why I told you not to listen.  I don’t believe what they say to me.  You do.  And it makes you think things that aren’t true.”

“But they _are_ true.  You just choose to ignore them.”

“Yeah, I do ignore them.  Because _you_ ,” she said, linking their arms and resting her head on his shoulder, “are worth one million of them.  I had my choice, and I chose you.  And I would still make the same decision.”

He placed his hand over hers on his arm.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“No problem.  And that’s the sweetest thing I’m ever going to say to you, so you better cherish it.”

He laughed, and moved to get up, taking the cap off her head as he did.

“Hey!  I said that was mine.”

She hopped up, but he held the hat above his head, and she knew she had no chance of getting it back.

“You left it at my house last night, so it’s mine for the rest of the day.”

She watched him put it on his head, and she placed her hands on her hips.

“Whatever.  You can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.”

They walked to his truck, and she jumped in the passenger seat, trying once more to get the hat back, but failing, as he always seemed to be two steps ahead of her.  He grabbed her hand and placed it in her lap, then rolled down the windows.

His bad mood earlier had left him entirely, and they laughed together the whole ride home, the wind in her hair and the sun on her face.

*             *             *

She doesn’t even realize she’s going until she buys the plane ticket, one way into the Kansas City International Airport.  She throws some clothes in a bag and then calls work, telling them a personal emergency has come up.  They ask her for proof.  So she quits.

It’s crazy.  It really is.  It’s been fifteen years.  He probably doesn’t even remember her.

He’s probably been trying not to think about it.

She wonders if he’s succeeded more than she has.


	2. two

“I wish I could fly.”

He smiled against her cheek.  They sat in the loft of his family’s barn, next to a pile of hay, her almost in his lap.  She stared out the window, out over the field.  Black crows danced in the air above.

“Like a bird,” she finished.

“You’d be a beautiful bird,” he decided.

She smiled then, bringing one of her hands up to rest in his hair.

“I mean, just look at them.  They’re so _free_.  They come and go as they please, aren’t chained by anyone or anything.  They can do whatever they want, and nothing judges them or tries to hold them back.  Not even the ground.  Not even gravity.  They don’t have a care in the world.”

“Except their dashing bird boyfriends."

She laughed.  “Of course.”

She turned from the scene outside and to his face, bringing her hand up to rest on his lips.

“Take me flying, Clark.”

“In a plane?”

She shook her head, settling into his chest. 

“No.  Something more open.  We could…hang-glide.  Over the coast.  Like seagulls.”

She felt his mouth press into her hair.

“Anything for you.”

*             *             *

She hails a cab at the airport.  The driver asks her where she wants to go.  She hesitates a moment, and then gives him the address of her parents’ old house.  She stares out the window as he drives, at the scene of the town’s rebuilding.  The taxi zooms past sidewalks she used to walk on, the salon where she got her hair cut and the corner store where old Mrs. McCourt worked.  She used to give her free soda in the summers.

She finds she almost misses it.

“You from around here?” the cab driver asks her.

“I used to be.”

In a few minutes, the town disappears, morphs into bigger yards, more open spaces, and then into fields full of crops – the kinds of places where she spent the majority of her childhood.  The car turns just after the Graham’s house, and then a mile down the road lies a pale blue farmhouse with two stories, and a porch that wraps around the front.  A stone’s throw from that is a small barn, and them simply fields.

Her childhood home.

A small smile graces her lips as the car lurches to a stop.

“This the place?” the driver asks.

“Yeah,” she murmurs.  She hands the man his cash and then gets out, retrieving her bag from the trunk and then watching the yellow vehicle disappear over the horizon.

She stands on the edge of her front yard, gazing at the building.  It doesn’t seem real.  She feels like it’s from another era, when she was too young to know better, when her biggest concern in the world was the shy boy next door.  When her mom would make her fresh iced tea in the summer, and her dad would play baseball with her at twilight out back.  If she listens, it’s almost as if she can _hear_ him rummaging through the barn.  It’s almost as if she can see her mom setting lunch out for the three of them on the porch, and damn it, _this_ is why she never comes back here.

Her heart breaks, and she sinks to the ground.  She doesn’t dare approach the house.  She doesn’t know if she can.  It doesn’t seem like hers.  The girl who lived here with her name and face was a different person.  She’s changed.  Everything’s changed.

She sits in the yard for some time, running her hand over the long, green grass, looking for clovers.  She doesn’t find any.

Finally, she mumbles to herself, “This is stupid.”

She gets up, slings her luggage over her shoulder.

“This was a stupid idea,” she says again, more loudly, towards the house.  She just turns right towards the main road, deciding to hitch a ride back to the airport, when she glances over her shoulder.  She can see a gray roof peeking out among the vast emptiness.  A symbol of the reason she came here in the first place.

A symbol of the face on the television.

She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes.  The air here tastes different than it does in Portland.  It’s sweeter.  Fresher.  Like homemade cookies, or dry white sheets blowing in the wind as they hang on a clothesline.

When she opens her eyes, the roof is still directly in her line of sight.  Gray standing out against green and gold like a beacon.

She changes her path, muttering to herself again.

“This is a stupid idea.”

*             *             *

“Why don’t you play?”

He looked up at her from his book, and studied her with careful, blue eyes.  His dark hair fell just above his eyebrows in waves.  He averted his gaze, and then glanced back up, as if trying to decide whether to answer her or not, or to create an answer that sounded believable.  He took two deep breaths, and then spoke.

“Sometimes I play.”

“No you don’t,” she countered immediately. 

She saw his eyes look out over their fourth grade classmates, in the midst of an intense game of kickball on the blacktop.

“Yes I do,” he insisted.

“I swing at recess everyday with Sarah and Emily,” she said, pointing to the two girls across the playground, “and I always see you sitting here under this tree, reading a book.  You _never_ play.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t want to play.  I want to read.”

She sighed, plopping down next to him in the grass, covered by the shade of one of the giant oak trees that grew around the asphalt court.  Her teacher told them that the trees were almost one hundred years old.

“You’re lying,” she accused.

“No, I’m not.”  He brought the book within inches of his face, trying to look interested.

“I swing every day, except today.  Today I watched you.  And you haven’t turned the page for ten minutes.”

“I read slow.”

 “You’re the fastest reader in the whole _class_.”

He didn’t answer her.

“You’ve been looking at them the entire recess,” she said, motioning toward the kickball players.  “Plus, I see you and Mr. Kent playing baseball in the yard all the time.”

“That’s different.  That’s _baseball_.”

“But you’re always outside.  You’re always playing.  I never see you _reading_.”

“I like to read.”

“But you want to play more.”

“So?” he conceded glumly, setting his book in the grass.

“So why don’t you _play_?”

He pulled his knees up to his chest, still staring at the game.  She decided to watch too.  The two saw James Boyle get thrown out at first base.

“They don’t want me to play,” he answered finally.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  They just _don’t_.”

“Well, there has to be a _reason_ – “

“They think I’m a freak, okay?” he shouted, looking at her with hard eyes.  “They don’t want me to play because they think that I don’t belong with them and that I’m weird.  Just like everyone else does.”

“I don’t,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well – “

But he cut off mid-sentence.  His brow furrowed.

“You don’t?” he inquired.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Matthew Jacobs kicked a home run.

“Why didn’t you swing today?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you,” she told him.

“But _why_?”

She looked down, and pushed a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear.

“I don’t know. I think you’re…”

She trailed off, picking at a clover in the ground, trying to find the right word to communicate the way he seemed to her.  She found none that he wouldn’t take the wrong way, so she instead offered a proposal.

“I thought maybe we could be friends.”

“Really?”

She looked up, and saw his eyes were bright.  The look of surprise on his face was so obvious that she found herself regretting she hadn’t approached him earlier.  It made her sad for all the lonely years he had spent.

“Really,” she echoed.

The smile on his face beamed, but faltered a moment later.

“It’s probably not a good idea to be friends with me,” he muttered quietly.

“Why?”

He closed his book, and rested his chin on his knees.

“Everyone will probably start being mean to you too, and then you won’t want to be my friend anymore and I’ll just be by myself again.”

She frowned.

“You’d still be my friend, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, _yeah_.  But you would just have me.”

“No one would be by themselves.”

He turned his head towards her, his eyes wide, like she was speaking gibberish.  Like the concept that he could ever be someone’s best friend was impossible.

“Yeah,” he answered hesitantly.  “But…I don’t know.  You could still change your mind.”

”Well, we could _try_ it.  For a little bit.  We could see if it’s okay.”

He was quiet for a few minutes.  They heard the teachers blow their whistles, telling the kids to start getting in line.

“ _Please_?” she nearly begged.

He exhaled slowly.

“Okay.”

She grinned, and he shyly returned it.  She stuck her right hand out.

“I’m Lana.”

He took her hand and shook it.

“I know.  I’m Clark.”

“I know.”


	3. three

The house looks just as she remembered it.  Like a photograph preserved between plastic pages in an album, her memory of the Kent residence has remained perfectly intact.  She stands at the end of the dirt driveway, staring at the building that looked much like her old house, except white.  It’s been so long.  She almost can’t believe she’s here, standing at the foot of that driveway.  She thought she’d left it behind forever after she left that box on the porch late one autumn night and jogged away with tears running down her face, swearing that she would forget.  She had to _forget_.

If she could forget, even a little bit, then maybe she wouldn’t be so sure that it was real.  And if it wasn’t real, then she didn’t know who he was.  He wasn’t real either.  And if he wasn’t real, then she had no reason to hurt.

And yet here she stands.

She hesitantly takes her first step, and then stops, as if she expects something to happen.  Like she’s waiting for the sky to fall or the sun to burn out or him to appear and sweep her up in his arms.

Nothing happens, though.  So she ventures on, staring at the ground the whole time, at the beat-up gray converse on her feet that she’s had since she was fifteen.  Shoes that she’s too old to wear, shoes that are barely viable footwear anymore.  But shoes that are too comfortable and familiar for her to throw away, shoes that still hold stains from grass and dirt no matter how she washes them.  They’re her Kansas shoes, which lie out-of-place among the shine and heel of the others in her closet.  But they were something of where she had come from, and she felt she had to keep _something_ from her life before.

She’d chosen the shoes.

She’d chosen the shoes, and she supposes if one were to just judge by her feet, then this could be a warm fall afternoon during junior year and she could be coming to take a nap in the field while he sat next to her and read _Ulysses_ just to prove to her that he did, in fact, read, still teasing her about the first day they truly met.

But nothing greets her.  She would think no one was home if a red truck didn’t sit in the driveway and the screen door didn’t hang open.

A dog barks.

She looks up, and she sees the animal and his owner walk around the corner of the house from the back.  The dog runs straight for her, and she crouches to the ground with a grin.

“Shelby!” she calls.

She leaps into her arms, immediately lathering her in kisses.  She laughs, and scratches her ears.

“It looks like someone remembered me.”

She pets her for a while more, and then looks up again, to the woman standing about fifty feet away, tennis ball in one hand while she uses the other to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun.

She begins to rise, and Shelby tries to jump on her.  She picks up her bag, and attempts to settle the dog, moving toward the woman carefully.

“Mrs. Kent?” she calls.

“This is she,” the woman answers.

“Mrs. Kent,” she continues, “I don’t know if you remember me – “

“Lana Lang.”

She stops, staring earnestly at Mrs. Kent.

“Lana Lang, is that you standing in my driveway?”

She nods once.

“Yes.”

The two stare at each other for a long moment, neither budging, neither making a sound.  She holds her breath without meaning to.

Then, Mrs. Kent’s face bursts into a grin.

“Well, don’t just stand there.  Come give me a hug, kiddo.”

She laughs, dropping her bag and running to Mrs. Kent.  She throws her arms around the woman.

“Careful, Lana, I might be sweaty.  I was out with Shelby.”

She shakes her head.

“You’re perfect.”

"Aw.  Far from it, sweetie.  But thank you.”

She buries her face in her shoulder.

“You remember me,” she murmurs.  For some reason, it makes her want to cry.

“Well, of course I do.  You spent eight years in my field.”

Mrs. Kent pulls back, holding her at arm’s length.

“And in my barn and my yard and my attic and my truck.”

They both laugh, and Lana rubs one of her eyes.

“God, it seems like a lifetime ago.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Kent agrees.

Neither speaks, and a moment of silence passes between them, loaded with memories and unspoken questions.

“Get your bag,” Mrs. Kent says finally, “and come inside.  I’ll make you some tea.”

She sits on the porch steps while Mrs. Kent puts the water on, making the excuse that she wants to enjoy the beautiful day.  Mrs. Kent smirks as she opens the door.

“I heard you don’t get too many of those in Portland.”

The truth is that she is very close to being overwhelmed, to her mind being flooded with too many memories too quickly for her to be able to compartmentalize them as she had done, since the last time she was here, with anything that reminded her of him.  Outside was her main task, and she had to remain focused.  The inside would come later.

Mrs. Kent comes out and plops down beside her, the screen door slamming behind her.

“The house looks exactly the same,” she remarks.

Mrs. Kent smirks.  “It does.  But it’s not the same one.”

“Really?”

“Yep.  The old one got destroyed in…”

Mrs. Kent trails off.

“Yeah,” she says quickly.  “I saw on TV.”

“They built me an exact replica.”

“Is the inside the same?”

“Every room except the guestroom.  I painted the walls a new color.”

“Wow.”

“They were very generous.  Very accommodating.  I guess when your son – ”

Mrs. Kent stops immediately, forgetting, like she herself used to in the earlier days.  When her wounds were still fresh.  Forgetting that she wasn’t privy to that information.

Forgetting she wasn’t part of this family anymore.

“But enough about me,” Mrs. Kent says quickly, nervously.  Anxious that she gave something she shouldn’t have away.  “I want to know about you.  What brings you back here?”

She laughs humorlessly, and then shrugs, running her hands over the denim of her jeans.

“I wish I knew.”

Mrs. Kent is silent, and she pushes a stray strand of her hair behind her ears.  She hopes for the woman to give her an out, to say “That’s okay, sweetie.  You tell me when you figure it out.”  But she doesn’t.  She simply sits next to her, staring out over the front yard, waiting for her to tell her the truth.  Because she _does_ know.

Finally she murmurs, “I know it’s him.”

She looks at Mrs. Kent, but the woman continues to stare ahead.  She links her fingers together, fiddling her thumbs and sighing.  The tea kettle on the stove starts to hiss.

“I figured you did,” she says.

“I don’t even know what happened."  She chuckles, even though she doesn’t find the situation remotely funny.  “I mean, I guess I _always_ sort of knew, subconsciously, that it was him.  But it wasn’t until weeks after all that chaos that I finally looked at it and _accepted_ the fact that it was him.  They showed a video on the news and I glanced up at it and I _knew_.  And then before I realized what I was doing, I was on a plane to Kansas City.  And now I’m here.”

She shakes her head.  Shelby comes up from the yard and sits by her feet.  She feels Mrs. Kent’s gaze on her, but now she is the one that does not look.

“I guess I just needed to…see him, maybe?  I don’t know….I think that I need to see him.”

There is still a swing set in the front yard, where two rusty swings creak back and forth in the slight breeze.  It catches her eye, and a hundred different moments flash through her mind at once ranging from fourth grade to twelfth grade, sitting beside him, swinging and having a competition to see who could go the highest, telling stores, or simply talking.

She jumps slightly, as a tear runs down her cheek and drops onto the back of her hand.

“I think I miss him,” she whispers.

“Oh, sweetie.”

Mrs. Kent puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her closer, her head falling on her shoulder.  Mrs. Kent smooths her hair as she calms her emotions and pushes away her tears.

“Lana,” Mrs. Kent says gently.  “Lana, he’s not here.”

The news doesn’t surprise her.  But that doesn’t stop her heart from dropping to her stomach, and waves of disappointment from overtaking her.

“Where is he?” she asks.

“Metropolis.”

She lifts her heard from Mrs. Kent’s shoulder, her eyebrows pulled together.

“Metropolis?  That doesn’t seem like him.”

Mrs. Kent smiles slightly.

“I know.  But he says he wants to be somewhere where he can keep his ear to the ground.  In case something would happen.”

“Oh.  Well, that makes sense, I guess.”

Mrs. Kent nods.  Then she excuses herself to go tend to the tea, and she returns with two cups in hand.  She hands one to her, and she takes a sip.  It’s prepared exactly like she drinks it.

Little things like that make her miss her mother.  And help her realize how much she’s missed Mrs. Kent.

They talk while they drink their tea.  About what, she can’t recall.  Not him.  Everything but him.  She thinks they may discuss Portland, or the weather, or how the farm in doing.  She doesn’t pay very close attention.  Because though they do not speak of him, she thinks about him.  Her mind races, and she can’t stop it.  It wonders how he likes Metropolis, what he does while he’s there, what he’s doing this very instant.  If he has friends there. 

If he’s in love.

She sets her teacup on the porch as the conversation reaches a lull.  Then sun is beginning to dip lower in the sky, creating a horizon full of peaches and light pinks and purples.

“Does he call?” she inquires.

“All the time,” Mrs. Kent answers fondly, a tiny grin on her face.  She hesitates a moment.

“We could call him – “

“No,” she interrupts abruptly.  She moves to get up. Mrs. Kent follows her.

“Actually, I should probably get going.  I just wanted to check in, make sure everything was okay around here, and that the house was fine.”

She lies.  She's good at lying.  She's been lying to herself for fifteen years.

But she can't fool herself this time.  Or Mrs. Kent, if the moment of tense quiet that passes between them is any indication.

“Where are you headed?” Mrs. Kent inquires.

“Back to Portland.”

To a job she quit, an apartment she can’t afford if she’s not working, a life that that will forever be haunted by a boy with a handsome face and blue eyes, taking her hand after they finished their homework and leading her to the next interesting, remote place he found for them, laughter warming his features.

She supposes some things simply aren’t meant to work out.

She picks up her bag, and Mrs. Kent hugs her.

“Do you want me to tell him you were here?”

She takes one step down the stairs, humming, contemplating.

“Yeah,” she decides carefully.  “When he calls, maybe you could mention I was here.  I mean, it’s not like he has to get in touch with me.  Just tell him I stopped by.  Tell him I say good luck.”  She makes herself laugh at her joke.  Mrs. Kent politely joins her.  “Tell him I’m sorry I missed him.” 

She turns, adds the last part quickly, before she can back out.

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

She almost jogs from the house now.  She’s about halfway down the driveway when she hears Mrs. Kent.

“Lana!”

She stops and turns to see Mrs. Kent chasing after her.

“He’s coming home for Thanksgiving,” she says as she approaches.  “I know that it’s a week away, and I don’t know if you can get off work.  But why don’t you have dinner with us?” she suggests, holding out her hand.

She stares from Mrs. Kent’s hand to her face, and then back again. 

"I wouldn't want to impede."

"You wouldn't be.  Really.  It's so quiet with just the two of us.  We'd love to have you."

Her mind tells her no, that he’s moved on, that he’s in Metropolis, that this is a stupid idea.  This is a stupid idea.

“Okay.”

Mrs. Kent smiles.  She returns it.

She motions towards next door.

“I can stay in my parents’ house.”

Mrs. Kent shakes her head, and grabs her hand.

“Don't be silly.  You can stay here.  Like I said, I painted the guestroom and I want you to be the first one to use it.”

"But he-"

"He'll be _fine_ with it," Mrs. Kent assures her, wrapping and arm around her waist and leading her back towards the house.  The woman's won this battle, and she relents hesitantly.

"You're sure?"

"Yes.  And if he's not, he'll have to deal with me."

She exhales loudly, and squeezes Lana for reassurance.

“He’s going to be so excited to see you,” she tells her.

Butterflies swarm in her stomach.

*             *             *

"Portland is so far away."

The phrase dropped from his lips for the thousandth time since January, when she told him the schools she was considering.  Now it was August, and the two stood in the Kansas City International Airport, in the lounge area as she waited to board her flight.  They both looked down at their feet, as people bustled around them.  She'd sent her parents to get her coffee.  They were back; they stood in the far corner of the room, trying not to be obvious as they attempted to spy on the conversation.  She sent a glare in their direction before answering him.

"I know.  I know that.  But they're one of the best schools in the country for my major, and by some miracle they gave me enough money so that it's affordable.  Plus, me and my parents used to go to the Pacific Northwest all the time when I was little, and I loved it up there."

"I know."

She bit her lip, and glanced up at him.  He's so tall she could still see his face unobstructed.  The sadness she saw there broke her heart.  He'd told her it was fine.  That he'd been upset in the beginning, but that he'd agreed it was the right school for her now.  He'd seemed really excited for her over the past few weeks.

"I'm sorry," she told him.  She truly was.

"Don't apologize." 

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, and then shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I think this is a good idea.  You're going to a great school and I know you're going to do really well and you're going to love it there.  It's just...it's far away."

"I'll call you every day," she said, and her flight number boomed over the loudspeaker for the third time.  She knew she had to go.  But her feet didn't move.

"And I'll come home for every holiday and the summer.  We'll see each other then."

"I know."

A hand tapped her on the shoulder.  She turned.  It was her parents.

"It's time to go," her mother said gently.

He closed his eyes.  She couldn't.  She couldn't stop looking at him.

_I'm not ready_ , she wanted to scream.  She didn't feel like she'd bid him farewell properly yet.  Even though she'd been trying to for five months.  She'd savored each moment they had with extra-special care, put each memory in a fort in her heart labeled 'Clark'.  She encouraged him to do the same, recalling numerous times she'd stopped whatever they were doing and took his hand, whispering to him.

_"Remember this.  Right now.  What you're doing.  How you feel.  Remember it.  And never let it go."_

She'd reassured him over and over again that things wouldn't change, not really.  She would call.  She would come home eventually.  They were mature.  They were adults.  They could handle a long-distance relationship.

They would be _fine_.

Then why did she feel that the moment she boarded her plane, she would be throwing away everything they ever had?

"I don't know how to say goodbye to you."

She could feel the urge to cry that she had been holding back for weeks creep up on her.  She swallowed it back, once more.

"Clark," she called.

His eyes were still closed.

"Clark, I need you to look at me."

With a heavy sigh, he lifted his lids.  The expression in his eyes was so sad, and so _scared_.

It was what finally made her tears spill over.  But she continued.

"You've been a part of my life every day for eight years and I don't know how I'm supposed to leave you.  I don't know how I'm supposed to get on that plane and live in a city hundreds of miles away from you, and right now I want with everything inside of me to stay.  But I can't.  I know that, and you know that.  We have to do this.  And it's going to be _so hard_.  And I'm so afraid, Clark, but at the end of the day, I know that we are both going to be okay.  Because you are the strongest person I've ever known, and I love you more than anyone else had ever loved anyone..."

He closed the distance between them as she said this, wrapping her in his strong arms and burying his face in her shoulder.  She threw her arms around his neck, waterfalls cascading down her face.

"I love you, too," he murmured.

She inhaled deeply, trying to memorize every aspect of his scent, knowing that she would fail.  That none of her memories were going to do him justice.

"Now you listen to me," she said fervently, close to his ear.  "You are amazing.  You are beautiful.  You are incredible.  Don't listen to anyone who says differently, because they're wrong.  You are going to do such _great things_.  Someday, somehow, you're going to change the world.  And everyone who's ever tried to hurt you is going to look at you in awe and realize that we were _right_.  You are so _special_ , Clark, more special than you know, or I know.  Don't forget that.  Promise me you'll never forget that."

A moment passed.  Then, he mumbled into her shirt.

"I promise."

She nodded, closed her eyes, and squeezed him closer for one fleeting second.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Then she let him go.

She pulled away from him, grabbed her carry-on off the floor.  His gaze followed her.

She took one step, and then paused once again, turning to him.  He stretched out his arm, and she linked their fingers together.  It was only the second time she'd ever seen him cry.

"I'll call you.  I promise."

He tried to smile, and she copied his attempt. She took one step backwards, then two.  With each one, she felt he slipped further and further from her.  She was overcome with the strange feeling that they had been a singular, magical moment, like the meeting of two strangers' eyes on a busy city sidewalk, an instant that created a spark that was snuffed out just as quickly as it was born, as you lost their head in the crowd around you.

Three, four, five steps.  Their grip grew looser.

It was like she was losing him in such a bigger way than she actually was.

Six, seven, eight.

His hand slipped from hers.


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm overwhelmed by the positive response to this story, especially since I love writing it so much! Everyone who reads and comments has my heart.
> 
> Love and thanks to you all, xoxo.

Mrs. Kent spends seven days trying to relieve her nervousness, the uneasiness she feels with everything around her.  She keeps Lana busy.  The two spend most of their time outside, showing her around the farm again, walking with Shelby.  For this she is thankful.  Her mind isn't given much opportunity to dwell on the fact that she will see him in a mere few days.  For the first time in _fifteen years_.  Time she had spent resigning herself to the fact that she'd never see him again.

And yet, Mrs. Kent mentions him too, with increasing ease and frequency.  She throws his name around not enough to make her overly anxious, but enough to make her more comfortable with the thought of being around him again.

Mrs. Kent spends seven days trying to relieve her nervousness, and she _succeeds_ , to a great extent.

When her eyes open on the eighth morning, on _the_ day, she stares up at the ceiling.  Soft light filters in through the window of the guestroom.

She smiles.

She's excited to see him.

*             *             *

"Your mother is worried about you."

He didn't looked up at her from where he sat in the parking lot of the funeral home, tucked in-between cars, leaning against a pick-up truck and staring intently at the side of an SUV.  Mrs. Kent had pulled her aside in the building ten minutes earlier, trepidation written all over her face, the brave facade she put up slipping momentarily in front of her.  The new widow's eyes were overwhelmed.

_"I can't find Clark.  Lana, I can't find him."_

She'd hugged her, told her that she was on it, that she would have him back within a half-hour.

She had seen him slip out a side door a few minutes earlier.  She went after him.  And now, she stood over his hiding spot.

"My mother?  I thought she was having too much fun at my dad's _funeral_ to worry about me."

She crouched down.  And she slapped him.

It didn't hurt him at all, she knew.  Her palm stung.  She had felt more of it than he had.

But it served the desired effect.  He turned, staring at her with surprised eyes.

"Stop it.  Don't you _dare_ talk about your mother like that.  Because I promise you that she would like to run away just as much as you do.  The difference is, she can't, because she's an _adult_ and people expect her to deal with these things.  And the last thing that poor woman needs is for you to be mad at her."

She sat down next to him on the pavement.  She said her next words hesitantly, not wanting to have this conversation now, _here_ , but knowing he wouldn't come back until they talked about it.

"And we both know that's not really why you're upset."

He pressed his lips together, and stared straight ahead again.  She stayed silent, waiting for him to speak.  Forcing him to confront the subject with her.  Because she could be stubborn, too.  And she wasn't getting up until he came out and said it.

Minutes passed without a word.  Then, he audibly swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"I could have saved him," he whispered.

She picked up a stray stone on the ground, and twisted it between her fingers.

"I could've saved his life."

"I know," she said gently.

"But I didn't.  He told me not to, and I _listened_ to him.  And now he's dead.  And it's all my fault."

His head dropped to his chest, and she reached out her hand, placing on his arm.  He was in so much _pain_ , had been every moment since Jonathan Kent had perished.  She wanted more than anything to take it away, to burden some of it for him.  But she couldn't.  Even if she could, she knew he wouldn't let her.

He blamed himself.  No one else did.  Not her.  Not his mother, even though they knew what he was capable of.  But he did.  And the load that had placed on him was _enormous_.  Heavier than maybe even he could carry.

"This is all my _fault_ ," he repeated.

"Baby," she cooed, running her hand along his forearm.  "Baby, no it's not."

"Yes it _is_!" he shouted, and she jumped.  He noticed, and he immediately looked at her, his expression softer than before.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she assured him.

He closed his eyes, and laid his head back against the pick-up truck.

"I hate him sometimes.  For telling me to stop.  Because I would've saved him if he hadn't.  I was _ready_ to save him.  And then he would still be here.  And Mom wouldn't be sad, and I wouldn't despise myself.  And I can't _stand_ the fact that sometimes I hate him.  But I do.  I can't help it."

He paused, taking a deep breath.

"Why would he do that?  Why would he tell me to stop?"

She put down her stone, and curled closer to him.  He sounded so genuinely _confused_.  Her heart broke.

"He always said," he continued, "that we had to wait for the right time.  To tell people what I was.  What I could do.  What if that was the right time?  What if it was God telling us that it was the right time?"

"Clark."

He didn't look at her.  So she sat up slightly, and took his face between her hands, forcing his head to turn in her direction.  The red rims that she saw around his eyes made her sick.  She could've cried with him, but she didn't, and instead forced herself to smile sorrowfully.

"He gave you a choice," she told him.

He didn't speak, so she continued.

"The two things that your father wanted for you, more than anything, was for you to be ready.  And for you to tell the world who you are on your own terms.  When you wanted to.  When _you_ decided it was time."

She pushed back a dark curl from his forehead.

"If you had saved him your father last week, he would still be here.  But _you_ wouldn't.  Who _knows_ where you would be, Clark?  In some government lab somewhere, with doctors doing tests and people asking questions that you don't know the answers to."

He looked down, and she took one of her hands from his face and moved it to lace their fingers together.  He squeezed her hand, and didn't relent.

"Your father knew that if he didn't tell him to stop, you would've saved him.  You would've had to.  After all, he's your father.  You couldn't just stand there and watch him die.  You would've been forced to reveal yourself."

"But that's what I did, Lana.  I stood there and I watched him _die_." 

His words were filled with so much contempt for himself.  She hated it with everything inside her.

"Because you had a _choice_."

"Are you supposed to be making me feel better?  Because you're not."

"You weren't ready, Clark.  If you had been, his hand wouldn't have stopped you."

"Yes I _was_ ," he insisted, pulling back from her slightly, squeezing her hand tighter.

"You were ready to _save_ him," she agreed.  "Of course you were.  But you weren't ready for the consequences that decision would've brought."

He didn't speak.  She brought her hand back to his face.

"He would've hated himself, Clark.  Like you hate yourself for not rescuing him, he would've hated himself for forcing you into a life that you aren't prepared for, that you'd be absolutely miserable in.  So he gave you permission to let him go.  He gave you the last thing he could give you.  He let you have control of your life.  He let you have what he always desired for you.  He gave you a choice."

She stroked his cheek with her hand.

"Someday, there will come a time when you'll be ready to answer their questions, and go through their tests, and deal with their resistance to you.  But it's not that time yet.  And that's okay."

He shut his eyes, and tears fell from behind his lids.

"I'm going to miss him so much."

She pulled him down to her, and he buried his face in her neck, sobs wracking his body.  She rocked him back and forth, shushing him, telling him it was alright, running her hand in slow circles on his back.

When his crying began to slow, she spoke.

"I'm going to miss the way he always made fun of my throwing when we played baseball."

He laughed, the first time she'd heard him laugh in what seemed like years.  Her heart swelled.

He lifted his head, and tried to smile at her.

"You do suck at throwing."

“And you suck at complimenting your girlfriend.”

“Oops, sorry.  I mean, wow, honey, you have a great arm.”

He sat up, chuckling again.  They stared at each other.  His eyes were still sad, but he seemed lighter, somehow.

Like he'd finally started to forgive himself.

She took his hand and helped him up, dusting herself off and then turning him around, wiping the dirt off his suit.  She extended her hand, and he grabbed it.  Before they began to walk back in the building, she leaned up, stole a kiss from him.

"Everything's going to be alright," she told him as they began to walk.  "You know that, right?"

He gazed up at the sky, a dull blue, as sunset was approaching.

"Yeah," he said.  "Yeah, I do."


	5. five

The eighth day drags by, in lulls that nearly make her crazy.  Mrs. Kent can't distract her today, though she doesn't really try.  Mrs. Kent spends most of the day inside, preparing for his arrival.  She tries to help, but Mrs. Kent denies her, smiling and telling her to relax.  To have the day for herself.  So she sits on the couch with Shelby for the majority of the day, flipping mindlessly through television channels, trying not to think about it, and failing.

Around four, the smell of chicken and dumplings begins to waft from the kitchen.  His favorite meal.  She smiles slightly, and then freezes, as she realizes that the next time she eats, it would be with him.

It suddenly becomes so real to her.  In the time they had been apart, it had been somewhat easy, once she forced herself to stop thinking about him, to convince herself that she'd made half of him up.  What had happened, what she'd seen him do, was surely fantastical enough to be fantasy rather than reality.  Kansas became hazy, like a dream once remembered, but long forgotten, as details washed away with each drop of the Portland rain.

And yet, they resurface so quickly now.  The smell of Mrs. Kent's cooking brings back so many scenes of sitting at the dinner table with his little family, him laughing as Mr. Kent teased her _again_ , her trying to look disapprovingly in Clark's direction, but being unable to hold the expression as he reached under the table and grabbed her hand.

It overwhelms her, facing the fact that it wasn't a dream.  It was _real,_ and was about to become real again.  Her heart races, her palms becoming sweaty, and she has to get out of the house.  She feels like the walls are closing in on her.  She springs up from the couch, grabs Shelby's tennis ball, and walks out the back door, the dog on her heels.

Fetch is methodical, and she focuses on each step with impressive precision.  Aim the ball, throw the ball, count the number of seconds it take Shelby to retrieve the ball, count again the number of seconds it takes for her to run back and drop it at her feet, pat Shelby on the head, pick the ball up, repeat.

She's always been good at drowning things out.  It's what enabled her to stay away so long in the first place.

She and Shelby are just about to complete the twentieth iteration of the cycle. As she jogs back, she begins to wonder when the dog will poop out and forget about her tennis ball, when she hears the sound of car's tires against the gravel of the driveway.

Her heart leaps, skips a beat, and then starts back up in double-time.

Shelby drops the ball at her feet, and then sits, wagging her tail back and forth and staring at her expectantly.  She briefly glances down, but she can't move.  She can barely remember how to breathe.

She hears the slam of the screen door in front, and then Mrs. Kent's unmistakable squeal of delight.  Car doors open and close, a trunk pops and then is slammed back shut.  The sound of voices briefly fills the air, but she can't make out what they're saying or, more importantly, who they belong to.  Until she hears Mrs. Kent call out, as clear as day.

"Honey, it's so good to see you!"

The world around her begins to whirl as if she's just gotten off the Tilt-o-Whirl that they always had at those giant state fairs when she was growing up.  She crouches down, placing her head between her knees.  She's going to puke or pass out, she's sure of it.  She doesn't know which she'd prefer.  Which would be less embarrassing.

Shelby's cold, wet nose nudges her hand.  She lifts her head, and gives the dog a weak smile.

"Mom!"

The sound startles her, even though she's been waiting for it.  Even though she's been trying to prepare herself.  The sound of his voice, deep, clear, strong, rings through the Kansas evening.  She jumps, and then sucks in a deep breath.  She's frozen, has forgotten how to operate her limbs, as suddenly each moment she'd spent with him goes through her mind like pictures in a flipbook, from the day they'd shaken hands on the playground until he mumbled the words _'I promise'_ into her shirt and his hand slipped from hers.

She can't even cry.  Her mind can't process anything other than the fact that Clark Kent is standing, living, _breathing_ , not twenty yards from her.

At the sound of his voice, Shelby's ears prick up, and she bolts off in the direction of the front yard.  She stops momentarily, looking back at her, asking her to follow.  She shakes her head, and she seems to understand, or perhaps is just tired of waiting.  The dog continues on.

She knows the exact second when he spots his dog, because his laugh suddenly fills the air.  Like a _song_.  Goosebumps raise all over her body, and she can't help but grin.  His laugh had been the soundtrack of her childhood, had harmonized with hers on the good days, had cheered her up on the bad.  It had been her reason for enduring every snide comment, every hardship, every trouble that she was caused because of their relationship.  His laugh.

And his smile.

Shelby starts to bark, incessantly.  The sound would drift off, and then grow louder again, as if the dog was coming to see her.  But then it would become quieter.  She listens for a few minutes, and then frowns, wondering why the dog was running around in circles.

The answer dawns on her just as quickly as the question had come.

_She's trying to show him you're here, dummy._

She almost laughs.  Because the dog doesn't know what happened and the dog doesn't know that the two of them don't speak anymore.  As far as the dog is concerned, the two of them are still best friends and _of course_ the first thing he would want to know is that she was here.

Or maybe Shelby is just trying to get it over with already.  After all, she'd going to have to see him sometime.

_I'm going to have to see him sometime._

The sentence rings over and over again in her head, begins to return the feeling to her legs.  She _was_ going to have to see him sometime.  Would she rather his first sight be one of her curled on the ground, having the biggest meltdown of her life, or one of her standing to meet him with grace, a confident smile on her face?

He had told her once that she was brave.  She hadn't believed him, then.

She decides that now was the moment to prove it to herself.

She takes a deep breath, and then heaves herself up, dusting off her pants.  She stares at her feet, watches as they take a small, deliberate step forward, and then the next, until she is walking at a steady pace to the edge of the backyard.  When she's confident that her feet will move without her forcing their every motion, she lifts her face towards the sky.

"Remember," she whispers to herself, "it's always worse in your heard.  You're going to have to see him sometime.  He used to love you, you know."

She rounds the corner of the house.

*             *             *

"Clark!"

She ran after him, through the field, batting stalks of corn out of her path.

"Clark, slow down!"

She knew she couldn't outrun him, that she would never catch him unless he allowed it.

"Clark, would you just wait a second!  I need to talk to y _oomf_."

She was paying so close attention to making sure her feet didn't trip, because then she'd _definitely_ never get close to him, that she missed the fact that he'd stopped.  She ran straight into him, and began to fall, but he caught her, and set her straight on her feet.  She stared up at him.

"Go _home_ , Lana," he urged.

"No.  We need to talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Yes there _is_."

"Look, Lana, you need to _go home_."

She glared at him, and crossed her arms.

"I am _not_ going _home_ until we talk about this."

He smiled cheekily at her.

"Fine.  Then I guess you can sit in the cornfield all night."

He went to turn, but she sat down with an angry thump.

"Fine. I will."

His eyes narrowed as he gazed at her.

"You wouldn't dare."

" _Try_ me, Kent."

They stared off at each other for a few tense moments, before he sighed heavily, and relenting, sat down beside her.

"You are so _stubborn_ ," he mumbled.

She grinned.

"I know."

Their conversation came to a halt after that.  He looked anywhere but at her.  She picked at the dirt beneath her with her index and middle fingers.

"So," she began awkwardly.  "You can shoot red lasers out of your eyes."

"Oh my _God_ ," he groaned, and tried to get up, but she pulled him back down.

"Clark, wait.  I don't care."

"Yeah, I _know_ you don't care.  So there's nothing for us to talk about."

She shrugged.

"Well, I think we should still _talk_."

"Fine," he huffed. "Let's talk.  News-flash, Lana, I shoot laser beams out of my eyes, you don't care.  I'm a _freak_ , you don't care.  I'm your only friend, no one talks to you because you hang out with me, you don't care.  I'm ruining your life, you don't care.  You don't care, I get it.  Case closed.  Nothing to talk about."

She frowned.

"First of all, you're _not_ ruining my life.  And you're _not_ a freak.  Second, you always talk like me being your friend is a bad thing."

"It _is_ a bad thing.  For you, I mean.  Not for me."

She could've screamed at him.

"Would you stop it?" she pleaded.  "I _hate_ it when you talk about yourself like that.  Like you don't matter.  Because you're..."

"Weird?" he finished for her.  She looked at him, and he stared at the ground, a stern expression on his face.  "Strange?  Not normal?"

She took a deep breath, and considered her next words, trying to find something to say that would make him understand.  How she saw him.  How he should see himself.

She finally whispered, "You're different, Clark.  But that's not a bad thing.  Being different doesn't make you bad.  It makes you...special."

He rolled his eyes.

"Great.  Now you sound like my mom."

She smirked, and nudged him.

"That's because me and her know what's really up with you.  We're _right_."

"And you really don't care?" he asked, turning and gazing at her earnestly.

She shook her head gently, stared into his eyes, pushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

"No."

"You don't care that I can shoot lasers out of my eyes?"

"No."

"And that I'm really strong and really fast and can hear and see really well?"

"No," she repeated, honestly.

"And you don't care that no one's going to talk to you for the rest of your school career because of me?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Clark, we're in _eighth grade_.  In ten years, I'm going to remember that _two_ , maybe three, even existed."

He pressed his lips together, and stared up into the late afternoon sun, squinting.

"I wish I was normal.  Like everyone else.  Everything would be so much easier."

"It would be easier," she agreed, looking up with him.  "But it might not be better.  I mean, you're the way you are for a _reason_.  And it's hard right now, because we don't know what it is or what it means.  And it seems unfair.  But someday, we _will_ know why.  And then it'll all be worth it."

"And now you sound like my dad."

She hopped up off the ground.  He followed her.

"Your parents know what they're talking about.  _Most_ of the time."

They laughed, and she linked her arm with his, as they strolled casually to the edge of the field.

"You know," she remarked, “once you get over the initial shock that you can _shoot lasers out of your eyes_ , it's actually kind of cool."

He moaned, but the amusement in his voice warmed the sound, as the light autumn breeze carried it through the air.


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
> 
> I hope this chapter was worth the wait.

They say that it's always worse in your head.  That nothing in the universe is as bad, or good, as you can imagine it.

They're wrong.

Seeing him again, laying eyes upon him for the first time in _such_ a long time, is simultaneously the best and worst thing that's ever happened to her.

Her face is blank, she knows.  She can feel it.  Her outward appearance does nothing to betray the absolute _turmoil_ her emotions suffer inside her.

She freezes again, instantly, as soon as she lays eyes on his figure, standing in the yard, hunched over Shelby, asking her softly, "What?  What is it, girl?"

But then the dog stops barking, spotting her.  He glances up in her direction, and his eyes widen infinitesimally as he straighten up again.  And then he is just as motionless as she, simply staring.

The moment their eyes meet, she feels unsteady.  Like a combustion engine, explosions going off inside her incessantly like a firework display on the Fourth of July. _Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom._

She feels like she could die.  She _wants_ to die.  She immediately desires nothing more than for a gaping hole to open beneath her feet, swallowing her in the earth and providing her escape from this situation, from facing him.  She feels like crying.  She feels like fainting.  She thinks at one point, she swallows back vomit.  She thinks, for the millionth time, that this was _such_ a stupid idea.

And yet, at the same time, she feels like she could _fly_.  She feels so light, and free, almost _giddy_.  It's like she's seventeen again, and he's kissing her for the first time behind her parents' barn.  And she can hardly believe it, because she's wanted him this way since she was thirteen but she didn't say anything because she didn't want to mess anything up and she never fathomed that he'd feel the same way.

It feels like being in love again, for the very first time.  When life is magical, when you feel like you can do absolutely anything in the world.

She takes him in as they stare at each other, as still as statues.  He's stunning, of course.  This is nothing new.  He'd _always_ been stunning, since they were children.  Yet, he seems more beautiful than she'd remembered.  Whether that's because he'd grown _more_ lovely over the years, or if her memory simply hadn't done him justice, she isn't sure.  Maybe a combination of the two.

The vast majority of her attention is focused exclusively on him, but there is a tiny part of her brain that notes her surrounding environment.  Like his mother, as her eyes dart back and forth between the two, and she murmurs, "I'm sorry, Clark.  I should've told you."  Or the beautiful redhead that stands a few feet behind him, bag in hand, a slightly puzzled look on her face, that might answer every question that's been bugging her since she found out he was in Metropolis.  But all of this is in the background.

Slowly, as they continue to gaze at each other, her good feelings begin to win out over the bad ones, and she feels the corners of her mouth gradually begin to turn up.  Looking at him, for the first time she truly knows why she came here.  The answer lies plain in front of her eyes now, and it seems so obvious she wonders how she missed it.  This, the power of certainty and her growing high from the sight of him, thaws her.  Makes her bold.

She clears her throat, and then swallows.

"I...I saw you on TV."

The words are barely above a whisper, but she is confident he heard her.  The world around them is quiet, and she knows he could have heard her words if she were standing a mile away.

She sees the ghost of a smile appear on his face.  Her stomach flips.

"I just..." she goes on, cautiously.  "I just had to...I just had to make sure that you were okay."

Tears begin to cloud her vision, and she curses them, because she wants to _see him_ , damn it.

"I had to make sure that you were okay," she says again, and he takes a step.  One step in her direction.  They both hesitate for a few seconds, and then before she can think, she is running.  They are running towards each other, without limit.  And for one glorious moment, nothing else matters.  Not the woman, not his mother.  Not the past fifteen years, not all the time she spent putting him in a box in her mind never to be opened again, not the multitude of times she told herself to forget, to just _forget_ , because then everything would feel better.

All that matters is _him_ , and _her_ , and how much she wants to touch him and how much she wants to talk to him and how much she wants to _be_ with him again.

They close the distance between them, and she leaps into him, throwing her arms around his neck and resting her head against him, inhaling, smelling him again, trying to say something but not knowing what to say.

He wraps his arms around her and lifts her off the ground, and for a brief second she remembers their last embrace in the airport, both of them trying desperately to hold on when they knew they had to let go.  His grip around her is so tight that it is nearly painful.  Her fingers snake up, finding his hair, tangling in the locks.

He buries his face in her shoulder, and murmurs one word against the soft cloth of her shirt.

_"Lana_. _"_

*             *             *

"Hello?"

Mrs. Kent's voice crackled through the receiver into her ear, as she sat on her bed in her dorm room, the telephone in her lap.

"Hi, Mrs. Kent.  It's me."

"Lana, sweetie.  How are you?"

"Fine," she answered politely, twisting the phone cord around two of her fingers.  She sighed.  Neither woman said anything.  Honestly, she didn't even know why she did this anymore.  It always ended the same.

She asked finally, without intonation, "Is he there?"

They both knew he was there.

"No," Mrs. Kent said.

"Oh."

The two of them sounded utterly bored, like they were taking turns reading the phonebook to each other.  Her evening phonecalls were tedious.  They'd had some variation of the same conversation every night going on two months.

Silence passed between them.

"I'll tell him you called," Mrs. Kent offered, as always.

To that point, she'd always responded with a quick _'Okay'_ , and then hung up.  But tonight, she strayed from their script.

"No.  Don't."

She put the receiver down with a click.

She used to cry.  A lot.  After the first week of him refusing all of her calls, she began to cry.  He was breaking her heart, and she didn't understand why.  She didn't know what had gone wrong.  She wanted an explanation, but every time she asked, Mrs. Kent had nothing to offer her.  She was left to wonder if he had found someone else, if he was sick of her, if he didn't love her anymore.

If he had _ever_ loved her.

She sobbed herself to sleep night after night after night.  By the sixth week, though, her tears had dried up.

She was angry for a while, _blindingly_ angry.  But then, she took it out on Mrs. Kent one evening, and felt so _bad_ about herself, even though the woman told her again and again it was fine, she understood.  It _wasn't_ fine.  What was happening wasn't Mrs. Kent's fault.  So she buried her fury down deep inside her.  And then their conversations became _boring_.

She put the phone back in its spot, and then curled up on her side on her bed.

She was _tired_ of this, of this whole meaningless charade.

Her roommate looked over at her from her textbook.

"Don't call anymore," she said bluntly.

"I'm not going to."

Her roommate rolled her eyes.

"You've been saying that for the past two weeks."

"I mean it this time," she told her, keeping her expression blank.  She glanced around the room.  A picture of him, taped to the wall, caught her eye.  She rose slowly, walked over to the photograph, and peeled it off the wall.  Without hesitation, she tore it in half, and tossed the scraps in the garbage can.

"I'm not going to call anymore," she vowed.

She didn't.


	7. seven

Their embrace ends when the redhead clears her throat, pulling the two out of their private world.  He stiffens, lets her go immediately, and takes a step back to stand next to the strange woman, who has come up behind them.  She smiles at Lana, sticking out her right hand.

"Hi.  I'm Lois Lane.  Clark's girlfriend."

It's the words she's been expecting, honestly.  But they still hit her hard, like a punch to the stomach.  His life in Metropolis falls neatly into place for her, and she can see it now.  His life with Lois Lane.

It's a harsh dose of reality after her encounter with Clark, and it brings her back down to Earth.  Her giddiness begins to fade.  And next to the first kiss, the reasons it ended now played in her mind.

But she kept her face guarded, pleasant.  She takes Lois' hand and shakes it firmly.

"I'm Lana.  Clark and I used to be friends."

She sees him cringe slightly at her description of their relationship, but it's the best she can muster.  Anything that they were to each other is strictly in the past tense now.  She supposes she could've said that they used to be in love, but she didn't want to startle the poor girl.

"Lana came to visit me last week," Mrs. Kent says, coming up and putting her arm around Lana's shoulders.  "And I invited her to spend Thanksgiving with us.  After all, it's been so long since we've seen her, hasn't it, Clark?"

"Yeah," he whispers.

"Of course, I didn't realize that he was bringing a guest, too.  But that's okay.  We have plenty of room."

"Is your family not getting together, Lana?" Lois asks.

She stares at her, studying her face.  She doesn't know if that was meant to be insulting, or if she's genuinely curious.

"Lana is part of our family," Mrs. Kent answers immediately.

"I'm an only child and my parents are dead," she states bluntly.

Lois' eyes widen, and she stammers, clearly embarrassed.  But she's not looking at Lois anymore.  She's staring at him, as he looks down, avoiding her eyes as she speaks of her parents.

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry.  I didn't...I didn't mean to - "

"It's fine, Lois," she interrupts.  "It was ten years ago.  It was an accident.  Some guy was high on Percocet and was driving on the wrong side of the road at night without his headlights.  He slammed into them head-on going 120.  They both were killed instantly."

He still doesn't look at her.

"I'm so sorry.  That's _awful_."

"Yeah," she responds.  "It was really hard for me for a long time.  But, you know, you learn to live with it, eventually.  Life goes on."

He begins tap his fingers against his thigh, like he always does when he's nervous.  A tense silence falls over the group.  Lois must notice the way she won't look away from him, how he won't look at her.

"What?" she questions.

"Nothing," Lana tells her.  She glances at the woman, and smiles.  "I assume that you'll be kicking me out of the guest room."

"Oh.  Are you staying here?"

"Yeah.  But it's no problem, really.  I'll just sleep in Clark's room."

Lois hesitates slightly, like she's taken aback at her statement.

"Oh?" she questions.

Lana shrugs.  "Yeah.  I mean, I used to do it all the time when we were younger."

" _Really_?"

Now, Lois is obviously taken aback.

"Yeah."  She pauses, makes her sweat before continuing.  "I made Clark sleep in the guest room.  His bed was more comfy."

Lois visibly relaxes, laughing slightly.

"Oh.  Well, are you sure?   I mean, it's no problem if you want - "

Lana cuts her off.  "Nah.  Don't worry about it.  Besides, I don't think the two of you would fit in his twin bed."

This makes Clark's head snap up.

"I'm sleeping on the couch," he announces, almost in a daze.

She smirks.

"Suit yourself.  Then Lois gets a queen bed all to herself.  Come on, I'll help you bring your bags in."

Mrs. Kent excuses herself to set the table.  She and Lois go and pick up the bags sitting next to the car, carrying them into the house, talking about nothing.  The plane ride, the weather.  Out of the corner of her eye, she observes him watching them, standing in the middle of the yard.  They walk back to the house, Lois in front of her.  As she goes to walk up the porch steps, he whispers her name, so only she can hear.

"Lana."

She stops, sighs, contemplates turning around.

She decides to keep going.

*             *             *

Martha Kent stood on the edge of her living room, half-watching the parade on the television, half-watching the back of her son's head as he sat on the couch.  He'd been sitting there for three hours, without speaking.  He was waiting.  Selfishly waiting.  _Foolishly_ waiting.

"Has the Snoopy balloon gone past yet?"

The head didn't move.

"Clark," she said gently.  He didn't respond, so she said it again louder.  He jumped, and then slowly turned around to look at her.  She repeated her question, wondering how it was possible for someone like him to drown out so much.

He stared at her, blinked once, his face blank.

"Yeah," he mumbled.  "Yeah, you missed it.  About ten minutes ago."

She offered him a small smile.

"Aw.  That's my favorite."

He nodded stiffly, and then turned back around.  She sighed.

"Clark, you can't-"

"It's fine," he interrupted her, without moving.

"It doesn't _seem_ like it's fine."

"Well, it _is_ , Mom.  It's fine."

She gazed at him for a few more moments, and then turned and walked back into the kitchen with a quiet ' _Okay'_. She wiped her hands on her apron, and then took out her pie dough and rolling pin.

She didn't know what to say to him.  She didn't know if she should try to make him feel better, or be honest with him, or just keep mum and accept the fact that he was going to pout through the rest of the day.  She felt bad for him.  He was her son, and he was hurting, and that made _her_ hurt.  But at the same time, she knew that he had done something wrong, and that is was incredibly rude and, frankly, _stupid_ of him to expect her to come over.  He'd ignored every one of her phone calls for the past three months, until they stopped coming.  She wasn't going to visit on _Thanksgiving_ , no matter tradition.

She heard Shelby scratching at the door.

"Honey, can you let Shelby out?"

She didn't get answer, but she heard the slow squeak of the couch cushions as he rose, and the creak of the screen door as he opened it.

A few moments passed, and then she heard the screen door open again, as he came back inside.  His footsteps echoed down the hall, and then came to a stop as he reached the linoleum floor of the kitchen.  She kept rolling her pie crust, waiting for him to say what he wanted to say.  When he didn't, she turned around to question him.  But her curious, concerned _'What?'_ died in her throat.

Her gazed fixed on the large cardboard box he held in his arms, and her heart sank.

She glanced up at him, but he was frozen, staring down into the package.  She took her apron off, and then walked over to him, peeking inside.  It was just what she expected; she spotted one of his old t-shirts from high school folded neatly on top of other various items and knick-knacks that had passed between the two of them over the past eight years.

"Oh, _honey_."

She was undeniably sad, not only for him, because she knew that he _did_ truly love her, no matter what the events of the past few months had seemed like.  But also for her.  Lana had become such a constant part of their tiny family.

She supposed some things simply weren't meant to work out.

She took the box from his arms with surprising ease, as it seemed he was still frozen from...shock?  Heartbreak?  Anger?  Some combination of the three?  She set it on the floor, and then hugged him tightly.  His arms maintained their positions, as if he were still holding the box.

"That's it?" he whispered.  She tilted her chin up to look at him, and found him staring down at the floor, into the box.  His face was still mostly expressionless, as it had been most of the day, but in the back of his eyes, she could see his anger growing.  Simmering.

"Eight years and all I get is one cardboard box left on my porch filled with the stuff I gave her?"

"Clark, this is hard for her too."

"She should've come over to see me.  And told me in person.  She owes me that."

She pushed away from her son, stood across from him with her hands on her hips, her expression growing stern.

"I don't think that girl _owes_ you much of anything."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that she called you every day for three months and you didn't pick up the phone _once_."

He narrowed his eyes at her.

" _She's_ the one who left."

"After you told her it was _okay_.  And I'm pretty positive that if you'd told her that you were going to _ignore_ her if she went to college in Portland, she would've reconsidered."

"I was trying to do the right thing," he said, and she saw a single tear run down his cheek.  He wiped it away immediately.  "I was trying to do the right thing."

She believed him.  She did.  She just didn't understand why he thought pretending she didn't exist was the right thing.

"She owes me more than a damn box," he said, and then walked swiftly out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving the box behind.  A few moments later, she heard the slam of his bedroom door.

She ate Thanksgiving dinner alone that day.


	8. eight

After they rearrange their living space, replacing her belongings with theirs in the guest room while she moves into his bedroom, they sit down to dinner.  Lois and Mrs. Kent sit at the heads of the table, while they sit across from each other, neither making eye contact with the other.  After Mrs. Kent says a quick prayer, they pass the food around the table.  She takes a bite of dumpling, smothered in gravy, closing her eyes as she does.  She nearly hums in delight.  She can't remember the last time she'd had a home-cooked meal as good as Mrs. Kent’s.

Lois and Mrs. Kent do the majority of the talking, discussing Metropolis, Lois' job, their trip to Kansas, the city versus the country.  Clark chimes in every once in a while, when he is forced to.  When a question is tossed in his direction.  He smiles, answers politely.  Then he goes back to staring at his dinner plate like chicken and dumplings is the most interesting thing he's ever seen.  And she _knows_ that's not true.

She contributes nothing to the conversation voluntarily, nor is she asked to.  They leave her alone, focus on Clark's new life instead of reminiscing on his old one.  She's at a loss for words again.  They haven't spoken directly to each other since their embrace.  She can't tell if he's embarrassed, or if he regrets it, or if he just doesn't know what to say, like her.  She could figure it out.  But that would require her to look at his face for more than half a second, and then Lois might start asking questions, and then everything could become a mess, quite quickly.

So she focuses on scarfing down her delicious dinner, much like him, telling herself that now is not the time to clear the air.  They have to wait until they're alone.

(She wonders if they'll ever get a chance to be alone.)

She is so zoned in on her food that she begins to drown out the trivial conversation going on.  It surprises her slightly, then, that she can still pick out his voice addressing her like they were in a silent room and he spoke it into her ear.

"I'm sorry."

She's working on a mouthful of chicken and dumplings when he says this, but she stops mid-chew, her eyes slowly dragging up to look at his face.  He gazes at her so earnestly.  Almost like he's in pain.  There's something eating him up inside, she can tell.  What he wanted to say to her on the porch earlier, when she had ignored him and followed Lois inside. And he's tried to wait until they were alone, like she had.  But he couldn't keep it inside.

The other conversation halts immediately, and Lois and Mrs. Kent's eyes dart back and forth between the two of them.

She collects herself in a moment, and swallows her food, putting down her utensils and wiping her mouth.

"I should have gone to your parents' funeral."

This causes her to pause again, as she is taken back to one of the darkest times in her life.  She is reminded of sitting in a church pew dressed completely in black, looking at the doors every time they swung open and new mourners arrived.  Searching for him.  Knowing that he wouldn't come.  Knowing that she hadn't interacted with him for three and a half years and that he _wouldn't_ come.

Searching for him anyways.

(He didn't come.  And that night, as she lay in her bed, in her parents' huge farmhouse, she'd realized she was all alone.)

"It's okay," she answers eventually.  He keeps staring at her.  She glances up, then glances down again.  She goes on.

"We weren't together at that point or anything."

"No," he insists.  "It's not okay.  If it wasn't for you, I would've _never_ made it when my dad died.  I should've been there for you."

"Clark, let's be honest.  We meant something completely different to each other when your dad died than we did at my parents' funeral."

Silence falls over them.  She sighs.

"I appreciate the gesture.  But that's not what I was hoping you'd apologize for."

"What were you hoping for?"

She doesn't say anything right away, taking a sip of her drink.  She sets the glass back on the table, and then runs her pinky finger around the rim.

"Why didn't you answer my calls?"

She’d always thought it would be harder to say than that.  That she would put it off for as long possible, stumble over the words, bring it up and then let it go again.  But the question is articulated perfectly.  She wants to know.  The desire is so strong that it trumps her hesitance.

It’s been fifteen years, damn it, and she deserves to know.

She receives no answer, so she looks up.  He's staring at his plate again.  She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, and shrugs.

"I mean, just once.  Just to tell me that you didn't want to be with me anymore.”

This isn’t the time or the place for this conversation.  Out of the corners of her eyes, she sees Lois’ lips pressed into a tight, nervous line, while Mrs. Kent opens and closes her mouth, like she is searching for some words that would divert them to another subject, but finding none.

The house is silent as the four of them sit, waiting to see who the next speaker would be and what they would say.  She can hear the faint tick of the second hand coming from the clock in the kitchen, a car pass on the road outside.  They all wait, but no one steps up.  So she laughs once, setting her fork down and resting her face in her hands.

“It’s just that I loved you _so much_ ,” she says, tilting her head towards the ceiling and closing her eyes.  “And I didn’t understand why it was happening or what you were thinking, so I just…kept calling and kept telling myself that one day you would answer the phone and everything would be like it had always been.  But that never happened.  And even after I stopped calling, there would still be days when I would wake up and think about it and…not understand.  I still don’t understand.”

She opens her eyes briefly, and sees how the overhead light is distorted by tears in her eyes.

“Clark,” she begs.  “ _Please_ answer me.  _Please_ say something.”

The room stays quiet.  She waits a few more seconds, and then scoots her chair back suddenly, roughly.  She can’t take it anymore.

“This was a stupid idea,” she says, for what seems like the thousandth time since she’d stepped off the plane in Kansas City.  But this time she means it, with everything inside her.  For the first time since their reunion, she remembers how much Clark had _hurt_ her.  She remembers the gaping wound he’d caused her, and left her to deal with all alone, while she bled out, slowly, painfully, her entire life changing and whirling around her and she having nothing to hang onto but a pair of fucking _shoes_.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kent,” she begins rapidly, turning towards the woman.  “You’ve been so great to me, and I’ve enjoyed my time with you so much, and I know that you meant well, but I can’t be here anymore.”

She goes to walk up the stairs to retrieve her bags, but before she can, he reaches out and firmly grabs her wrist.

“I ruined your life.”

He says this still without moving his head, eyes closed, free hand slowly rubbing his temple.

“No you didn’t,” she says, like she always did when he used to blurt out stupid stuff like that.

“Yes I _did_ , _damn_ it,” he insists, dropping her arm, picking up his fork and slamming it down on the table with a booming thump.  All three women jump, but he doesn’t regard it.  He keeps going, his words fast and agitated.

“I did, and you didn’t notice, because we had been best friends since we were eight and you didn’t know any better.  Or you did notice and you decided not to put up with it because you felt too bad for me.  Or you really just didn’t care.”

“I didn’t feel _bad_ for you,” she interrupts, but he ignores her.

“I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter.  The point is that _I_ noticed.  _I_ cared.  I could see it.”

“See _what_?”

“Your life!  Without me.  How _perfect_ it would be.  How you would’ve been the most popular girl in school, the girl everyone liked because you were so sweet and smart.  You could’ve been homecoming queen, class president.  You could’ve had that school eating at your feet.  But you didn’t.  Because of me.  I took away from who you were.  Instead of seeing you, all they saw was the girl that was the freak’s best friend.”

He pauses, and she thinks about his words, exhaling loudly in annoyance.

“You’ve always been so hung up on that sort of stuff.  Clark, it was _high school_.  So what?”

“Yeah, you’re right.  It was high school.  But when did it stop?  What did high school turn into?  Did it make you choose a school that you didn’t really want to go to?  Or turn down a scholarship?  A job opportunity?”

“It obviously didn’t.  I went to college on the other side of the country.”

“If I would’ve asked you to stay, you would’ve stayed.  And don’t try to tell me that’s not true, because it is.”

She doesn’t answer right away.  She stares down at her feet, one trying to drill into the hardwood floor.

“Yes,” she admits finally.  “Yes, I would’ve stayed.”

“You would’ve given up your dreams for me.”

“Clark,” she murmurs, letting out a breathy laugh.  “You _were_ my dream.”

He shakes his head slowly.

“No.  You deserved more than that.  You were capable of so much more than that.  And I knew that if I just let it be, if we stayed together, then you would end up back in this dinky little town that you hated so much in four years and you would regret it for the rest of your life.  So I…”

“You what?” she prods cautiously.  She’s about to break.

“I let you go,” he finishes.  “Like all those birds you always talked about.  You said that they were so free.  So I did what you would never do because you didn’t want to hurt me.  I set you free.  I got rid of the last tie you had to this place, and set you free to do whatever you wanted.”

The room is silent, except for the tick of the clock in the kitchen.  Her hands are pressed into fist so tightly her fingernails leave half-crescents on her palms.

“You son of a bitch,” she manages to push out, finally.

He turns in his chair, looking up at her.

“What?” he questions, bewildered.

It takes everything inside her not to punch him in the jaw, because she knows that he would be perfectly fine and she would end up with broken knuckles.  But inside, she _seethes_.

“You threw everything we had away so you could make some idiotic, self-righteous sacrifice?”

“ _Self-righteous_?”

“Yes, self-righteous.  Let’s be clear on some things, Clark.  First, the only thing that your abandonment ever did for me was break my heart.  Into a million pieces that took me _years_ to find and fix properly.”

“But I had to do it, Lana.  Someone had to do it, and you would never-“

“No, Clark,” she says, her voice raising.  “No one had to do it.”

“Yes they did.  It was the best thing for you.”

“I don’t know when you determined that _you_ were the one that could make the best life decisions for me, but you _aren’t_.  You never were.  And the fact that you thought you could makes me question a few things about who you are.”

“I didn’t _want_ to,” he emphasizes fervently, finally getting up.  She thinks she might see the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes for the briefest moment, but then he blinks and it is gone.  “I never _wanted_ to.”

“I’d always made my own decisions about you,” she declares, going over and plunking down on the stairs.  She glares at him.  “ _Always._ The first day I decided to talk to you, when I lost all my other friends because of you.  All those times those kids would fucking _berate_ me because we sat next to each other at lunch, when my parents would still try to deter me from coming over here when I was a senior.  I always picked you, and it was my own choice.  And I _always_ took pride in that fact, that I was making the decisions that _I_ wanted, that _I_ thought were right.  I wasn’t letting anyone else decide how I should live my life.  You _knew_ that.  And the fact that you still had the _gall_ …”

She tapers off, not knowing how to finish.  Thinking still that in those days, he had _gotten_ her, unequivocally and completely.  Realizing that wasn’t true.

Feeling too betrayed to finish.

Silence falls over them.  The air hangs heavy in the house.  Tumultuous.  The world around her is churning, like a ship at sea caught in a storm.  The next words could either escalate the stakes or calm the waters.

He ventures out into the wind and ocean-spray.

“You loved me too much.  You always loved me too much.”

The words would normally make her angrier, because no one should be able to put a limit on how much she can love something.  But they instead remind her of her mother, the first time she had caught her kissing him.

_“He’s going to be burden that you have to carry with you your entire life.  And you can’t see that because you’ve been with him for too long.  You know him too well.  You care about him too much.”_

A corner of her mouth twitches up.

“You sound like my mother.”

“We do have a habit of sounding like each other’s parents.”

She almost laughs.  Despite herself.

“Except my parents were always wrong.”

“No, Lana,” he says, and the seriousness in his tone makes her look up.  He stares into her eyes, imploring her to believe him.  “They weren’t always wrong.”

“Your mom,” he continues.  “She told me once that I would end up hurting you.  Someday, without meaning to, I would hurt you.”

He hesitates, swallowing loudly.  He turns his eyes to the ground once again.

“I did,” he whispers.  “I hurt you.”

She begins to sob, unabashedly, laying her head in her hands and allowing herself to drown in her heartbreak.  Being here, having this conversation with him, she’s eighteen again.  She’s hundreds of miles away and he’s slipping through her fingers and she _can’t do anything about it_.

“That was never my intention.  You know that’s something I would _never_ want to do.”

“Clark,” she says, trying to slow her tears, pushing the hair from her face.  “What did you think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, shrugging his shoulders.  “I guess that I thought you would…do whatever you wanted.  Finish school.  Find someone else.  Or not.  I don’t know.  Like I said, whatever you wanted.  I thought you would get over me.”

“Get over you?”

“Eventually,” he murmurs, staring down at the floor.

“And did you get over me?”

He laughs humorlessly, brings his eyes back up.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get over you.”

She stares at him, out of words.  Slightly in awe of how deeply she had failed in getting over him.  Fifteen years, without a word, without a thought, without one tear shed in his name.  All of it had dissolved as soon as she saw him standing in Martha Kent’s front yard.

Look at her now.

She doesn’t move, not knowing how to feel.  She can’t decide if she should be appalled or annoyed or touched that he considered this.  Or sad.  For them.  For the entire sorry situation.

She is overcome one moment, but steels herself instantaneously.  She gets up, running up the stairs and closing his bedroom door behind her without taking time to listen to any protests.  She kicks off her shoes and then plops down on his bed without bothering to change clothes.  The sheets are neatly tucked in, cold.  She doubts he’s slept in them.

When she inhales, though, they still smell like him.

She cries herself to sleep for the first time in fifteen years.


	9. nine

She awakes in the morning slowly, after a deep, dreamless sleep.  The sun filters in through the window.  She can hear Shelby bark at something down stairs, the bustle of action in the kitchen.  The rest of the house is awake.

It’s Thanksgiving, she realizes.

She lets her mind linger on this fact as she gets ready for the day, picking out an outfit and then sneaking into the bathroom down the hall unseen.  She turns the shower on, and gets in, the water hot against her body, making her pale skin a light pink.  She washes quickly, and then simply stands, letting the water pour over her.

It’s Thanksgiving, and she’s here, in Kansas, in this house, with these people.  The last time she had been here, she had left with a vow of never returning.  Thanksgiving with them turned into Thanksgiving with others.  With friends in Portland who didn’t even know where Smallville was.  Thanksgivings spent with her burgeoning cook roommate Zoey, seeing her turkey go from bone-dry the first time to mouthwateringly delicious last year, and if she closes her eyes she can almost taste it.  Having dinner with a few neighbors and friends, transplants to Portland who didn’t have time to return home, or simply nowhere else to go.  Sitting around together, laughing, socializing, living there and then.  Being happy.

On days like that, even she’d forgotten Smallville.

She’d been okay without him.  She’d had friends.  People that filled her days with laughter and chatter.  Her life in Portland was full.  She’d had an existence of which some people only dream.

She hadn’t needed Clark.  She never had, and she still doesn’t.  She’d healed the first time.  She’s been scarred, yes.  But she _had_ healed.  More or less.  She could do it again.

She could leave for Portland right now, and she would be fine.  She would have her colleagues, her friends, and he would fade.  He would wash away with every drop of rain, and though he would always be a ghost lurking in the corners of her mind, most of the time, she would forget.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that she had _wanted_ him, so badly.  More than anything.  And everyone else, her parents, _him_ , had decided that she wasn’t allowed.

That wasn’t fair.

She gets out of the shower once the water turns cold, gets dressed and throws her hair up into a ponytail.  She walks down the stairs, and enters so silently that no one notices she’s there.  She takes the opportunity to observe.  She sees Lois in the kitchen with Mrs. Kent making pies.  He’s sitting on the couch with a bowl of oatmeal.  The parade is on.  The Snoopy balloon is going past.  Lois makes some comment she doesn’t catch from the kitchen.  Mrs. Kent laughs.  He laughs.

A pang thumps in her heart.

Mrs. Kent turns around then, and catches her eye.  She smiles gently.

“Good morning, Lana.”

Both Lois and he turn around immediately to look at her.  She focuses on Lois.  The woman greets her with a tight smile.  The expression is strained.  Tense.  She hadn’t known before last night that there was another woman.  That she might have competition for his heart.

“Morning,” she murmurs.

She feels his eyes on her, but she avoids them temporarily.  Instead, she walks into the kitchen, asking if Mrs. Kent and Lois need any help.  When they answer no, she grabs an apple from the fruit basket in the kitchen, and sits down at the table.  She eats it slowly, tracing patterns on the green tablecloth with her pinky finger, all the while watching the two women work in the kitchen.  All the while feeling his gaze boring into the back of her head as if he was using his heat vision on her.

Shelby comes and sits at her feet, wagging her tail and looking up at her with hopeful eyes.  She grins, regretfully informs her that she doesn’t have anything for her, and then gets up and throws her apple core in the trash.  When she turns back around, their gazes meet.  Incidentally.  Because he won’t stop looking at her and she was facing in his direction.

It happens.  And now they stare at each other, neither moving, neither talking.  They have to do something about it.  They can’t stay here like this all day.

So she turns on her heel, walking to the front door and slipping her converses on before going outside.  She wraps her arms around herself; the morning air is chilly.  She stops, breathes in and out deeply, and then walks off the porch and across the yard to the edge of the field.  She plops down on the grass, pulls her knees to her chest.

She waits only a moment before she hears the creak and slam of the screen door.  Shelby comes barreling towards her.  Footsteps follow behind.

He sits down next to her, mimics her posture.  Shelby sits down between the two of them, rolls over.  He rubs the dog’s belly.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he says.

She almost snorts, rolling her eyes.  It’s a stupid thing to say.  It doesn’t mean anything.

But it eases the tension between them a little.  He’d always had a knack for that.  Of knowing what to say to make her relax.  Maybe it was a learned behavior, after he had to talk her down from instigating so many fights in high school, after she would hear people make snide remarks about him.

Her shoulders relax, and she pushes his hand from Shelby, replacing its spot on the dog’s belly with her own.

“Yeah.  Happy Thanksgiving.”

Her eyes scan the environment as she searches for what to say next.  The barn catches her eye.  She lets her memory linger there.  Suddenly, she laughs.

“What?” he questions.

“It’s nothing,” she says, shaking her head.  “I was just…”

She pauses, contemplates continuing.  She does.

“Remember when we tried to have sex in the loft two weeks before I left for school and your mom walked in?”

He laughs.  Unabashedly.  Throwing his head back.

Her stomach does somersaults.

“Oh my _God_ ,” he says, amusement coloring his voice.  “You turned so _beet red_.”

“Well, yeah.  Your _mother_ walked in on us trying to _fuck_.”  She tries to sound stern, but her tone is warm.  She can’t wipe the smile from her face.

“Why’d we even pick to do it there?”

She answers, immediately, “Because we were eighteen and stupid and desperate.”

“And in love.”

His addition makes her stop.  Remember that moment and all the others.  She turns to him slowly, staring at him, studying his eyes.  They’re sincere.

“We really were, weren’t we?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, a smile appearing on his face for the briefest moment.  “Yeah, we were.”

“Now I don’t even know who you are.”

“Yes you do,” he answers immediately, placing his hand over hers on Shelby’s belly, stilling it.  His thumb makes smooth, gentle patterns on the back of her hand.  He closes his eyes.  His next words are a firm whisper. 

“You’ll always know who I am.”

She wants to believe him.  Everything inside her begs to listen to him, to accept his words, to look at him and see the same boy that she grew up with, who stole her heart and her dreams and every moment she ever spent with him.

But she hasn’t _looked_ at him since she’s been here, not really.  She hasn’t examined him, stared into his eyes and his soul and discovered if he’s still _there_.  The boy she loved. 

She’s been too afraid.  Because every time she thinks of it rationally, she can’t see how there could be a _way_ that he would still be the same person.  He’s experienced so much.  He’s travelled the world, met so many people, flown through the sky and above it.  He’s _saved the world_.

He finally grew into himself.  Matured into the man that she always knew he would be, the man who Jonathan Kent had died to protect.  He grew into a _hero._

And he did this all without her.

Could she know who he is now?

“So your name is Kal,” she begins, deciding that in any case, she should probably know how to identify him.

He laughs lightly.  “Kal-El.  Son of Lara and Jor-El.  From the planet Krypton.”

“Lara and Jor-El?  Those are your parents’ names?”

“Yeah.”

“Your _real_ parents?” she asks, looking at him in near disbelief.  That he’s _found_ them.

“Yeah,” he repeats, and he can’t hide the smile that breaks onto his face when he does.

It matches hers, and her lips only continue to turn up as he tells her the story of his doomed home of Krypton.  His unique birth.  The vision that his parents had for him.  The purpose for which he was created.  The fact that he is not simply the savior of one world, but _two_.

Above all her uncertainty, her grief over losing him, her anger at him for letting go, is _elation_.  He finally knows.  All those questions he always had, the mysteries that haunted him as he went thought life so obviously different from everyone else.  All the times he had just wished that he could be the same.  That he could be normal.

He found his answers, like she always knew he would.  And this, she sees, frees him.  It makes him happy.  It’s there in the animated way he speaks, the way his eyes are so bright as he looks at her, the way his muscles stay relaxed every time something that makes him different comes up.  His smiles a little bigger.  He laughs a little louder.

He’s finally found his place in the world.  And the part of her that never wanted anything other than his joy is overwhelmed.

And she can’t deny the wave of pride that washes over her as he tells his incredible story.  Because she’s always known that he wasn’t weird.  He wasn’t a freak.

He was special.  And now he, and everyone else, can see it too.

He’s a _superhero_ , a manifest version of the comic book characters that he and all the boys had idolized as they were growing up, complete with suit and cape.  He’s impossibly strong, invincible, can shoot red lasers out of his eyes.  He can _fly_.  He’s Kal-El, of the planet Krypton, son of Jor and Lara, here to save mankind.

She’s known this, more or less.

But when she thinks of him, this isn’t who she sees.  The image of him that she’s wanted so much to forget, the one she’d tried over and over to purge from her mind so she could truly start again, didn’t involve any of these things.  It contained no theatrics. No spectacle.  No superhuman ability.

The version of him that had mesmerized her for eight years and haunted her for fifteen more sat with her on the swing set in front of them when she was eleven, daring her to go higher and higher, until it felt like she was flying.  He helped with her biology homework.  He teased her incessantly just because he could, and then gave her a hug that assured her that he truly thought she was the most wonderful person on Earth.  He had the way she took her coffee and tea memorized.  He laughed at her jokes when they weren’t funny.  He brought her tissues when she cried at the end of _Casablanca_.  He let her win when they played _Clue_ because it was her favorite game and she was _awful_ at it.  He kissed her and set her world on fire.  He held her hand as they walked down the halls at school and grinned like he was the luckiest person on the planet.  He took long drives with her in his truck on summer nights and sang along with her to the radio _so_ loud and _so_ off-key.  He knew her.  He loved her.

She didn’t see Kal-El.

She turns her hand over, still on Shelby’s belly.  The dog has fallen asleep between them.  Their fingers lace together loosely.

“To me,” she murmurs, “you’ll always be Clark.”

No matter what suit he wore, how high he soared, how many people he saved, he would always be that boy to her.

“Lana, I am Clark.”

_How?_

The concept was so unfathomable to her that she pushed aside her fears and got on her knees, taking his face between her two hands and for the first time, really _looking_ at him.  Allowing herself to see what is there.  Not projecting anything.  Not wishing or hoping anything onto him.

Simply letting her eyes tell her the truth.

His face is confused initially, but then softens, as he watches her search desperately.  He brings one of his hands up and places it over hers.

He whispers, “I promise.”

There he is.

He holds her hand and says those words and her brain and her heart could recognize the look in his eyes as he speaks _anywhere_ , because it belongs to _him_.  Her Clark.

“It’s you,” she says.

“It’s me.”

For the first time, she knows he’s right.  And she throws her arms around him, almost squishing Shelby in the process, but the dog escapes with an annoyed yap.  Her arms encircle his torso and she cuddles into his chest.  He pulls her closer, laying his cheek on top of her head.  There are no tears shed.  Rather, she is incredibly _happy_.  They laugh together.

“Oh my _God_ , Clark.  I missed you so much.”

One of his hands comes up to smooth her hair.

“I missed you so much, too.”

“You can’t even imagine all the times I wanted to pick up the phone and tell you some of the ridiculous _shit_ that I had to put up with.”

He laughs harder, and she sits up next to him, feeling lighter than she has in a long time.

“No.  I’m serious.  I mean, I love Portland and all, but there are some wacky people there.”

“Well, I can tell you from experience that there are wacky people pretty much everywhere.”

They laugh quietly for a moment.  His fingers begin to tap against his thigh.

“So, you really love Portland?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she answers.  “I do.  I mean, the ocean is cold, and it does rain a lot.  But I have a really good group of people there that I love a lot.”

“Good.”  He nods his head.  “I’m glad you like it there.”

“It’s different than here, obviously.  Noisier.  A lot more traffic.  A lot bigger.”

She laughs.

“Of course, I guess you should be the one telling me about bigger.  I mean, _Metropolis_.”

“Metropolis,” he echoes.  “Yeah, I guess Metropolis is pretty big, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t fit with what I know of you.  I can’t see you…cooped up in a city like that.”

He shrugs.

“It’s different.  But it’s not bad.  There’s always something going on.  Something to do.  And Lois is helping me adjust.”

The way he tosses around her name, so casually, startles her.   She doesn’t fully understand the integration of the woman’s life into his.  After all, it’s a place that she’s only ever known to be occupied by herself.

And now it’s Lois who’s in the kitchen beside his mother, preparing dinner.  Granted, she was the one alone with him, but mainly because they needed to release some of the tension between them in order to have a civilized Thanksgiving.

It’s her spot, traditionally.  And even though she’d abandoned it two decades ago, she can’t help the twinge of jealousy that courses through her.  She stiffens slightly, and he notices.

“Oh.  Sorry.  I’m sure you don’t want to hear about Lois.”

“I do,” she answers honestly.  She wants to know about her replacement.  “And don’t be sorry about Lois.  She seems wonderful.”

 “She is,” he murmurs.

She remains silent, waiting for him to continue.  He wrings his hands together, and looks at her nervously before continuing.

“I don’t know.  It was just a big coincidence, actually.  I heard some military guys talking about this…aircraft they had found in the South Pole.  And I figured it was worth a shot.  So I got myself in, and when I went to explore the ship, Lois showed up.  But she had gotten hurt, and she was going to bleed out if I didn’t do something.  I had to _do something_.  And then…she found me.  I thought I would never see her again.  But she is _persistent_ , and driven.  She found me.”

He’s staring at the house now, through the kitchen window.  She can’t see anyone, but she’s positive he can.

“And she’s been there ever since,” he finishes.

 A gentle, fond smile graces his lips.  The adoration in his eyes takes her back.  To the way he used to look at her every morning when he picked her up for school, gazing at her like she was the best thing he was going to see all day.  Like she was the best thing he was ever going to see.

And then he would kiss her, whisper “Good morning” against her skin.

“You love her,” she says matter-of-factly.

He exhales sharply, presses his lips together and drops his shoulders.

“Clark, it’s fine.  I think it’s a little obvious don’t you?  And it doesn’t bother – “

“I don’t really want to talk about this, Lana,” he says, his voice low, cutting her off abruptly.  “Maybe you do, but I don’t.”

She pauses, takes a long look at him as her looks anywhere but at her.  His light disposition seems to dwindle as they speak of Lois, and a part of her wants to press him on it.

But the other part – the part of her that still values his happiness above everything else – wins out, and she lets it go, for now.

Their conversation lulls; Lois has put him in a mood, she does what she always used to in order to calm him down; she _touches_ him.  She links their arms together and then lays her head on his shoulder.

“I missed you, Kent,” she tells him again, because it’s true and because she could keep telling him every moment for the rest of her life and it still wouldn’t be enough to convey how much she had actually missed him.   She feels his muscles release at her words.  Gradually, he lays his head on top of hers.

“I missed you, too, Lang,” he murmurs.

Suddenly, the front door swings open with a creak, and Mrs. Kent steps out, presumably to let Shelby back in, but she wouldn’t be surprised if the woman was trying to spy on them.  She peers over in their direction, and they jump apart, as if they were eighteen again, trying to have sex in the barn.  She blushes as if they’ve been caught, but Mrs. Kent only smiles and waves at them before going back inside.

“We should probably go help with dinner, shouldn’t we?” she sighs, seeing Mrs. Kent’s interruption as a good opportunity to end the conversation, before things got awkward or before he got weird about Lois again.  She gets up, brushes the grass and dirt off her jeans, and smiles down at him, before turning towards the house.

Before she can blink, he’s in front of her, blocking her way, and she jumps, startled.

“Shit, Clark!”

“What?’ he inquires, confused.

“Nothing,” she says as she exhales, eyeing him up and down.  “I just forgot how _fast_ you are.”

He smirks.

 “Starting to think I’m a freak yet?”

She rolls her eyes, and shoves him lightly.

“Never.”

“Good,” he decides.  “Because before we go in, there’s something I want to show you that just might change your mind.”

“What about the word ‘never’ don’t you understand?”

He smiles again, and reaches out to her.

“Just come on.”

She stands there, crossing her arms in front of her.  His eyes grow sweet.

“ _Please_ , Lana?”

(In the back of her mind, as she stares at him, she’s surprised at how quickly they’ve been able to fall back into their banter, their playful dynamic, their _relationship_.  It’s easy, like the past years without him passed in a flash. 

It’s like they never left each other.)

She sighs dramatically.

“Well, since you said please.”

And she takes his hand.


	10. ten

The principal escorted her out of his office, and they walked into the hall to find him leaning against the wall, arms crossed across his chest.  He stood up straight when he saw them, flashed a stunning smile.

“Principal Simmons,” he greeted.  “Lana.”

“What are you doing here, Clark?” Mr. Simmons asked in a gruff tone, as she went to stand next to her boyfriend, close enough that their sides were just barely brushing together.

“I came to escort Lana to class,” he explained smoothly.  “Wouldn’t want her to get in anymore fights today, would we?”

She fought the urge to elbow him in the ribs.

“No,” the principal huffed.  “No more fights.  But shouldn’t you be in class, Mr. Kent?”

“We took a test in Government, and I finished early.  The teacher said it was okay.”

He held out his agenda for the principal to see the pass Mrs. Jacobs had signed, and the administrator glanced over the book once, exhaled loudly again.

“Whatever.  Just…get back to class, you two.  And Lana, I’ll be seeing you Saturday.”

“Yes, Mr. Simmons,” she answered coolly.

The principal eyed the two of them again, and then walked back into his office.  As soon as the door closed, she fell against him, closing her eyes.

“A Saturday detention, huh?” he remarked.  She reveled in the feeling of his voice as it rumbled in his chest.

“ _Two_ Saturday detentions,” she corrected, “thank you very much.”

He took her hand, twirled her under his arm to face the proper direction, and then began to walk down the hall with her tucked into his side.

“Your perfect record, ruined.  And it’s all my fault.”

She snorted.

“Your fault?  _Please_.  It’s Josh Miller’s fault for being a fricking asshole.  And honestly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before.”

He fell silent; she mentally smacked herself.

“Look,” she tried to explain, “that didn’t come out how I meant it.”

“It came out exactly how you meant it.  You meant that people make fun of me so much, that you’re shocked you haven’t had to punch someone in the face earlier.  It’s okay, Lana.  I know.”

She sighed as they reached her locker, and she extricated herself from him, leaning her back against the cool metal to face him.

“I know you know.  But I don’t like to remind you of it.  And I don’t like to think of it myself.”

He stayed quiet, as she reached out and placed her hands on his hips, pulling him towards her.  He reached his hand up to her face, cupped her cheek and ran his thumb across her lips.

“You’re brave,” he whispered gently.

“I’m not brave.”

“You just punched someone in the face for me.”

She shrugged, looking down at her feet.

“That’s…that’s what you do when you love someone.  You stand up for them.  You protect them.”

She bit her lip, and then drew her eyes up, captured the gaze of his blue eyes.

“And I love you,” she murmured.

The corners of his mouth twitched up; he ran his fingers over her lips once more.

“And I love you,” he declared.

His hand moved to her hair, bringing her face forward until it rested against his, and then he captured her lips with his.  She sighed into him.  Kissing him was decidedly the best part of her day, and she thought that if basic human needs like oxygen and food and water were of no matter, she could spend the rest of her life kissing him.

Mouths parted.  His teeth came out just slightly to nibble gently on her bottom lip, and then his tongue swept over the mark.  She opened her mouth to allow him access to her, and his tongue closed the gap between them to caress hers.

They broke apart just as the bell began to ring.  They smiled at each other, him running his tongue along his lips, their eyes bright.

They laced their fingers together.

*             *             *

She’s always wanted to go flying.

There is just something about being in the air, open and free with the world buzzing by below you that captivates her.  Parasailing or hang-gliding has always been near the top of her bucket list.   If she could be any animal, she would be a bird.  And if she could have any superpower, for even a day, it would hands-down be flight.

She’s always wanted to go flying, and she even asked him to take her, once, when they were young, stupidly in love, and their relationship was still so new.

She had never expected this, however.

She never expected to cling to him, Kansas cornfields below them and nothing but blue skies above them, as they soared through the atmosphere.

He had told her he wanted to show her something, and she knew something was up as he took her hand and led her to the backyard.  But even as he picked her up off the ground, looked down at her with amusement in his eyes and commanded her to, “Hold on tight, okay?” she had not known.

_This_.  This is more than she ever imagined.  And yet, here she is.  She is elated.  She is terrified.  She is in _awe._

She is flying.

She is too stunned to speak, and she breaks her eyes away from the Earth below to look up at him, her fingers wrapped around the fabric of his t-shirt so tightly her knuckles turn white.  His face is forward, a smile lighting up his features.  He senses her eyes on him, and looks down at her, still grinning.

“You wanted me to take you flying,” he offers, shouting over the sound of the wind.

“Yeah,” she breathes, knowing he can hear her despite the noise.

He laughs at her lack of words, and suddenly, begins to loosen his grip on her.  She inhales sharply, wraps herself around him more tightly.

“What the hell are you doing!” she exclaims, her voice a little panicked.

“Hey,” he says, slowing their pace, bringing her up so her face is next to his.  “I’ve got you.  I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She looks into his eyes, knows he is sincere.  She has to ask, all the same.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he swears.

She glances down at the ground once again, before looking back to him.  A slow smile begins to spread over her face.  He laughs again.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Once you get over the absolute paralyzing fear that you’re going to fall to your imminent death, yes.  It’s is pretty enjoyable.”

“We can go back down, if you’re scared,” he assures her.

She considers this for a moment, before shaking her head.

“No, I’m fine.  I trust you.”

“The question is,” he begins, smiling mischievously, “how much do you trust me?”

“If you let me go, Clark, I _swear._ ”

“No, I won’t let you go.  I’ll just…loosen my grip a little.  So you can hang-glide.  After all, that’s what you asked me when we were kids.”

She stares down at the ground.

“So, do you trust me?” he asks, lips at her ear.

She hesitates a moment, before bring her eyes back up, staring into his again.

Then, finally.

“I trust you.”

His face lights up.  Slowly, he moves his hand to grip around her waist.  He begins to move her body away from his, and she cautiously lets go of his shirt.  He flips her in his arms, so that she’s facing down, and then holds her body parallel to ground, like his.  Then he begins to extend his arms down.

She’s completely free from him now, save for his hands, her fingers wrapped around his wrists.  Like hang-gliding, except… _more._

Carefully, she lets go of him, and extends her arms in front of her.  She puts out her hands, feels the wind fly through her fingers, closes her eyes and feels the wind in her face.

She smiles.

She is _flying._


	11. eleven

She didn’t even know what she was throwing in that box.

Clothes.  Pictures.  Music.  A stuffed bear.  Some of this stuff wasn’t even _his_.  She just picked up everything that reminded her of him, even for a second, tears rolling down her face.  CDs they’d listened to together.  A biology textbook she’d forgotten to return to school after she graduated.  Her Royals hat.  A tape of her favorite movie.

Damn him, damn him, _damn him._

After she told herself he’d been sufficiently purged, she stormed down the stairs and out the front door, ignoring her mother’s calls from the kitchen as to where she was going at midnight with nothing but a giant cardboard box in hand.

She was going next door.  _That’s_ where she was going.

She marched through her yard and down the Kents’ dirt driveway without thinking about anything other than her anger, her pain, her endless questions, and her broken heart.  She looked up; the house was dark, meaning they were both asleep.  She made her steps lighter as she walked onto their wooden porch, and resisted the urge to throw the box down, making sure she didn’t wake anyone up.  The last thing she wanted to face was their questions.

She was done with questions.  If no one was going to answer hers, then she wasn’t going to respond to anyone else’s.

After she put the box down, she turned and ran, with every intention of not looking back.  But in the middle of the driveway, as soon as she was about to cut through the grass of her front yard, her feet stopped, almost involuntarily.

Her heart thumped.  And she turned.

She wanted Mr. Kent back.  She wanted to play catch with him again.  She wanted Mrs. Kent to make her tea and blueberry muffins and give her a long, warm hug.

She wanted to talk to him.  She wanted to hear his voice and let it settle deep in her eardrums, wanted his fingers between hers, wanted his arms around her and his lips on her lips.

She wanted everything to be okay.

But then, her heart thumped again, and it _hurt._ She knew nothing would be okay ever again.

She squatted down, crying again.  She dug her fingernails into the earth, picked up a handful of dirt and rocks and threw them towards the house.

Nothing would be okay.  Not anymore.

_I’m not coming back,_ she thought.

“I’m not coming back,” she whispered – she _vowed –_ and threw another bit of soil and pebbles.  And then, she got up.  She turned on her heel.

And she ran away.

*             *             *

After their flight, the rest of the day is startlingly _normal._

She and Clark come in from outside, and she ushers Lois out of the kitchen as a kind of peace offering, to spend some time with her boyfriend while she finished dinner with Mrs. Kent.  The two women bustle around the kitchen just like they used to, Martha showing Lana how to properly flute pie crusts and check if the turkey is done and Lana just enjoying her time with her second mother.

At one point, Mrs. Kent stops, comes to stand by Lana and, linking their arms together, lays her head on Lana’s shoulder.

“I missed you so much, kiddo,” she murmurs.

(And all the while, she can hear his voice and laugh ring out from the living room, and one by one, butterflies begin to flap their wings in the deepest pits of her stomach.)

When it’s finally time to eat, she sits in the same seat she occupied all those years ago.  Today, Clark sits in Mr. Kent’s seat, while Lois sits across from her.  This dinner is not tense, like the previous night.  Perhaps they all are caught up in the holiday spirit.  Perhaps Lois has accepted her peace offering with open hands.  Perhaps her tension is released now that she’s spent time with him.

Perhaps she’s finally started to forgive him.

Whatever the reason, dinner is downright cheery.  Everyone talks freely, laughs.  She even converses with Lois without a problem, without any pangs in her heart.

(Though, all the while, she sneaks glances at him out of the corner of her eye, tries to get reacquainted with his face, the way she used to be.)

After they clean up from dinner, they all move to the living room to watch the rest of one of the football games.  Clark and Lois sit down on the couch, and he throws an arm around Lois’ shoulders.  She goes to sit in the armchair, but he reaches out and grabs her arm.

“Mom’s going to sit there.”

She looks down, and he pats the one spot next to him.

“Get over here, kid.”

Her lips turn up at his use of Mr. Kent’s old nickname for her, and she hesitates only a moment, before deciding to screw it.  She doesn’t even look for Lois’ reaction as she plops down beside him.

Mrs.  Kent enters the room with pie for everyone, and they eat and cheer and laugh.

It’s like she’s returned, from a long journey in an alternate universe, where he wasn’t real and Kansas was only a dream.

It’s like she’s clicked her heels and come home.

(And all the while, she feels his side just barely brush against hers as they sit next to each other on the couch.  She hears him breathe, feels the warmth of his skin.  Something stirs inside her.  Something she thought was long gone.  Something she thought she killed for good the night she left that box on his porch.

All the while, she begins to fall.)

*             *             *

The church was cold.

She tried to count the goosebumps that rose up on her skin as people filed into the sanctuary, the old wooden doors opening with a loud creak every few seconds.  But she couldn’t see them from her assigned seat in the first pew, so she paid no mind to them.  Instead, she counted.

_One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…_

The church door groaned.  A quiet hum of hushed voices gradually filled the stale air.

And she was so cold.

_Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…_

She should have worn long sleeves.

A hand touched her shoulder, and for a split second, she hoped.  She hoped with everything she was that what she had been waiting for these past two days, as numerous mourners had shuffled through the funeral home in various shades of black and gray, had finally happened.

But, alas, her hope was short lived.  Because she quickly realized that the hand was too small, too delicate.

She glanced up, and saw Martha Kent standing over her.

She was surprised, because she hadn’t talked to the woman for a little over a year now.  She had promised herself she’d put that part of her life behind her, and so far, she had succeeded.

“Can it sit here, kiddo?” she asked, motioning to the empty pew beside her.

She didn’t answer, but Mrs. Kent sat down anyway.

She was surprised, but the more she thought about it the more she figured that she shouldn’t have been.  Because Mrs. Kent had always been there for her, whenever she had called on the woman.  Mrs. Kent had never let her down.

That’s more than she could say for some people.

Once Mrs. Kent had settled, she reached over and took Lana’s hand, squeezing it as tightly as she could.  It hurt a bit, but she didn’t say anything, because it was another distraction.  Another thing to take her mind off of what was happening.

Mrs. Kent took her hand, and she didn’t let it go.  She held it throughout the service, drove her to the cemetery with one hand on the wheel, held it throughout the burial, held it as she laid one rose on each of her parents’ caskets.  She held it as the two drove home, held it as she walked Lana to her front door.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, in a quiet, gentle voice.

She shook her head no.

“Well, how about you come over for a little while?  I’ll make you something to eat, we can watch a little television – “

“I think I just want to be alone,” she interrupted her.

“Okay,” she hesitated.  “But call me if you need anything, Lana.  I can be over in a second if you need me.”

She forced one corner of her mouth up, and the shuffled inside the house.  She didn’t even know if Mrs. Kent had left yet.  She figured she would go eventually, if she hadn’t.

She lumbered up the stairs and straight into the bathroom, where she turned the shower on and then promptly threw up into the toilet.  She brushed her teeth, and the stripped out of her black dress, stepping into the shower and letting the hot water pour over her body.

She began to cry.  She didn’t even know why she was crying, not anymore.  She cried on reflex.  She cried because there was nothing else to do.

Once the hot water started to turn cold, she turned the shower off and got out, drying off and then wrapping the towel around her body, leaving the bathroom without bothering to comb her hair.  She walked into her room, threw the towel on the ground and then crawled under her covers.

She closed her eyes, trying to sleep.  She wanted to sleep forever.  She never wanted to wake up.

But she couldn’t.  Because one thought kept eating away at her brain.

_He didn’t come._

She didn’t expect him to, not really.  Not after all that time.  That part of her was gone.  It was dead, just like her parents.

But, still.  _He didn’t come._

And at that moment, she realized she was all alone.


End file.
